Cut Off One Head (And Two More Shall Take Its Place)
by ProjectCastor27
Summary: Sequel to Secret Identities. Wally and Artemis adjust to parenthood and life in the Marvel Universe, while back home, Nightwing struggles to build a secret organization to take down The Light without letting it becoming yet another tool for the supervillain alliance to use for their own gain. Overlaps with Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
1. A New Player

**Hello everyone, and welcome to the long awaited sequel to my original Young Justice/Avengers crossover Secret Identities. Due to other commitments I won't be updating as much as I did with my other fanficts, but I'm still going to try to upload 2-3 chapters per week.**

* * *

 **Prologue: A New Player:**

 **New York City**

 **February 1, 2017**

 **6:00 P.M. EST**

"Good evening, everyone," Lex Luthor said as he greeted the five faces on the giant screens arranged in front of him. He'd called this emergency meeting of the leadership of The Light to discuss something that could be either a great benefit for them, or a thorn in their collective sides. "Thank you all for answering my call," he went on. "There's something urgent I need to discuss with you." He looked firmly at the faces of his fellow members of The Light. Vandal Savage, Ra's Al Ghul, Queen Bee, Deathstroke, and Klarion. With two of their number imprisoned, they'd spent the last six months vetting replacements. Deathstroke had taken Black Manta's seat on the council, while they were still looking for a suitable candidate to take The Brain's place.

"A few hours ago," Luthor continued, getting back on topic. "Belle Reve Warden Amanda Waller petitioned the U.N. Security Council for funding to create an international security organization called "A.R.G.U.S." that would clean up the spillover of the Justice League's battles and handle things like property damage, medical issues, insurance claims, lawsuits, that sort of thing." Normally, Lex would be trusted to handle things like this on his own, but given Waller's involvement, he felt it best to discuss the best course of action with his colleagues first.

"Such an organization could prove to be a valuable tool for our cause," Vandal Savage intoned, clearly thinking of ways that A.R.G.U.S. could be used to increase public distrust of the Justice League.

"I agree," Ra's Al Ghul chimed in. "But, with Amanda Waller in charge we must tread cautiously in how we assert our influence. If we are not careful, she could expose The Light to the world, or even aid the Justice League in their investigations." The "Great One" had nearly died as a result of the actions of the Justice League and their young protégés, and knew the value of not underestimating the damage your opponents could be capable of.

"Which is why I'm going to draft up conditions for Waller's funding," The CEO of LexCorp replied. "Just some fine print stipulations that will allow us control of A.R.G.U.S. with some other legalese to throw Waller off our scent." The proposal was met with universal agreement from the rest of the council. With the meeting concluded, Luthor terminated the call and pressed a few buttons on the keyboard of his computer, causing the screens to slide up into the ceiling before the security cameras went from the preprogrammed loop he'd set them up with back to a live feed. Once all trace of the meeting had been eliminated, he smiled. It was time to get to work.


	2. Parenthood

**Chapter 1: Parenthood:**

 **New York City**

 **March 20, 2013**

 **6:00 A.M. EST**

The silence of the five superheroes sitting in the waiting room of the hospital stood in sharp contrast to the screams coming from the hospital room nearby. Each member of the Avengers looked at each other as they contemplated what was going on inside. Wally West, superhero from another universe, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and honorary Avenger, was about to become a father. S.H.I.E.L.D. had found him unconscious in the arctic nine months ago. Despite their reservations, the Avengers accepted him into their ranks at Nick Fury's request to keep him off the World Security Council's radar while he, Stark, and Banner worked on finding a way to send him home.

Six months later, they made their first attempt at breaching the boundaries separating their two universes, only for Wally's girlfriend and best friend to wind up here instead. After a lengthy battle with the forces of a terrorist group under the command of think tank head Aldrich Killian, they prepared to send the three young heroes home. But there were complications. Before his abrupt arrival in their universe, Wally had inadvertently gotten his girlfriend Artemis (technically fiancé, since he'd proposed the day before his supposed "death"), and due to various technicalities involved with the meathod they planned to use to get everyone home, Artemis could not go back without harming her and Wally's unborn child.

So the two parents to be stayed behind while their friend, a superhero by the moniker Nightwing, returned to their universe while they waited here in the Avengers' until their child was old enough to safely make the journey. Since they had no idea how long they would be here, the two lovers got married a month ago, on Valentine's Day (the Avengers all felt it was cheezy, but Wally and Artemis attached some special significance to the date, so they went ahead with it). Now Wally was in the other room, standing by his wife's side as she gave birth to their child.

As the rest of the Avengers sat around the waiting room, they all contemplated the impact that their teammate's family would have on their lives. For although he wasn't an official member, after he fought alongside him in the Battle of the Norco a few days before Christmas, they all considered Kid Flash an Avenger in all but name. They had already would started babyproofing most areas of Avengers Tower, but even though the Wests had gotten their own house outside New York City, it would be a lot different for the entire team. Each member of the team had their own views on the situation and their own way of being affected by it.

As a father himself, Clint Barton was extremely good with kids, and was considering telling the rest of the team about his own family kept hidden off S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar. Natasha Romanov had no problem with having a kid around the Tower. While she knew that her forced sterilization by the Red Room didn't make her less of a person, deep down she still wanted kids of her own someday, with her fiery red hair and piercing green eyes. Steve Rogers welcomed the idea of Wally and Artemis' child being around the tower, but he also knew that it would be a constant reminder of the life that he and Peggy could have had. He was coming to terms with what happened with him, but he wasn't quite ready to move on romantically.

Similar Captain America, Bruce Banner recognized that having a family around the Tower would be another reminder of what he could never have. Because he transformed into the Hulk whenever he either got angry or his blood pressure got high enough, it was physically impossible to have kids. He could always adopt a child whether he found a romantic partner or not, (As much as he loved Betty, he couldn't be with her because of her father's relentless pursuit of The Hulk) like Natasha he often dreamed of having kids who looked partially like him. Thor was on Asgard and couldn't voice his opinion, but the other Avengers figured that the big guy would want to settle down and have kids sooner or later.

"Ten bucks says she punched him in the shoulder for getting her pregnant," Natasha said with a wry smile as the broke the silence. Bruce and Steve stared at her wordlessly asking if she was seriously starting a betting pool on this.

"Twenty says she squeezes his arm hard enough to leave marks," Bruce pitched in seamlessly. While he knew they probably shouldn't be taking bets, he still played along and made his guess at how things would play out. The entire team found Wally and Artemis' back and forth routine a source of entertainment, and everyone was wondering how things were going in there.

"Fifty that the kid inherited his or her dad's powers," Steve added noncommittally. He wasn't much of a betting man, and didn't want to throw down too much money for something he had no way of predicting. The odds of the kid inheriting their dad's super speed was a much safer bet.

"A hundred that Wally's the one screaming instead of Artemis," Clint chimed in with a smirk, knowing Artemis' tendency to punch her husband when he said or did something stupid.

"You know what?" Tony called out last. "I bet five hundred dollars that she already gave birth and the screams we hear are either coming from another room or just a recording they set up to mess with our heads so they can have a little private time." Everyone burst out laughing at that prediction, and a minute later, one of the nurses came out into the waiting room to let them know that the new parents were ready to see them.

The Avengers moved quietly into the room to find Artemis holding a beautiful baby boy in her arms. Next to the hospital bed, Wally stood by his wife's side, looking over her shoulder at their newborn son. His right arm was covered with nail marks and he was gently rubbing his shoulder with his left. The team's eyes moved to glare at Bruce and Natasha, who looked back with satisfied smirks on their faces.

"He's adorable," Natasha said finally, breaking the silence and focusing everyone's attention back on the reason they were all here. She and Bruce could collect their winnings later. "What's his name?"

"Jai West," Wally and Artemis answered together.

"Knowing you guys," Artemis went on, "We figured one of you would start up a betting pool so once Baywatch over here finished screaming from me grabbing his arm, we decided to wait before letting you guys in here to see how high the betting would get while we had some time with our baby, who, to our surprise, didn't inherit Wally's speed." Steve looked crushed as he pulled out his wallet and wordlessly handed the four fifty dollar bills he kept there for emergencies to his smug teammates. While the rest of the team talked with Wally and Artemis about if they needed help with anything like babysitting or errand running, Tony did the calculations to figure out how much each member of the betting pool. Meanwhile, everyone's focus remained on the little bundle of joy curled up in his mother's arms.

* * *

 **I know some of you are disappointed I didn't have the birth of their child from Wally and Artemis' perspective, but I didn't really think I'd be able to pull it off to my satisfaction, so I decided to have the Avenger's reactions while they waited in the lobby. For those who don't read DC comics, Jai and Iris West are Wally's kids in the comics universe. Everyone YJ continuation fic I've read so far has had Iris be the one born first, so I decided to have Jai (no clue if It's pronounced "Jay" or "Jie" so feel free to correct me on my pronunciations) be the one born first to make my fic stand out a little more from all the other "Artemis pregnant with Wally's kid" fics out there.**


	3. Moving In

**Chapter 2: Moving In:**

 **New York City**

 **March 27, 2013**

 **3:00 P.M.**

"Home sweet home," Wally announced as he and Artemis walked into the small apartment with their newborn son in his mother's arms. After a few extra days in the hospital to make sure both mother and child were healthy, the expanded West family could finally go home. While they did spend time at Avengers Tower, Wally and Artemis both agreed that they didn't want their child living in a building that was a target waiting to be hit. So once they'd both gotten jobs, they bought a moderately priced apartment in the city's outer boroughs.

Paying the rent was fairly easy, considering their S.H.I.E.L.D. Paychecks. Both of them had tried to get jobs outside of S.H.I.E.L.D. but because of the whole situation with keeping themselves a secret from the World Security Council, that idea didn't pan out. So Wally remained employed with S.H.I.E.L.D. as a forensic analyst, while Artemis took up a position as a combat instructor. Of course, now that they were parents, they wouldn't be working as often as they had been.

It had taken a few weeks for Artemis to get used to living in this universe. She didn't regret following the O.R.P.H.E.U.S. probe back from its maiden voyage, but building a life for the two of them in this realm took some adjustment. Since he'd been stuck here longer, Wally was used to the differences between their world and the Avengers. So he had helped her get caught up on what was the same and what was different while they were planning their wedding. They were still eager to go home, but Wally argued that while they were stranded here, they might as well make a life for themselves in the meantime.

A few hours later, the two of them plopped down on the couch after putting Jai to bed.

"He may not have gotten your speed," Artemis said with a wry but weary smile. "But he's definitely got your energy." Wally smiled back.

"We're not letting him hold a bow until he's at least ten," he replied with a chuckle. "So don't get any ideas of teaching him how to shoot as soon as he can walk."

"Oh please," Artemis retorted. "That's the kind of stupid idea I'd expect from you, Baywatch." Wally smiled and admitted defeat before pulling his wife closer to him on the couch and giving her a kiss.

"Point taken," he replied with a hearty laugh. "But we both know that Tony isn't allowed to babysit, because he'll be just as bad." That got a chuckle out of Artemis, and the two of the launched into a discussion of which of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents or Avengers would make the best babysitters. Clint, Natasha, and Steve were the best candidates. Bruce meant well, but given the risk of him Hulking out over tiny things, they felt it wasn't worth the risk. Thor didn't always know his own strength, and nobody would trust Tony Stark to take care of a pet, never mind a baby.

An hour later, the Wests went to sleep that night with a baby monitor in their room and the baby's room so they could hear if Jai woke up in the middle of the night. Both of them were nervous about how well they would do at parenting, but they were each determined to be the best parents they could be. And so husband and wife went to sleep full of hope for the future.

* * *

 **I know, this chapter is a little short. The ones before and after the movies will be. Cut Off One Head has more slice of life chapters than Secret Identities, so there will be more short chapters throughout this story when the characters aren't busy with the events of the Marvel movies.**


	4. Girls' Night Out

**Chapter 3: Girl's Night Out:**

 **New York City**

 **April 20** **th** **, 2013**

 **7:00 P.M. EST**

The chattering of the crowded bar was a low roar in the ears of the three women seated in the back of the restaurant. Artemis West, Pepper Potts, and Natasha Romanov chatted eagerly about their lives as they waited for the waiter to deliver their meal. Pepper caught everyone up with how things were going managing Stark Industries, Natasha reluctantly let slip a few minor details about her most recent S.H.I.E.L.D. missions, and the two of them together pumped Artemis dry for information about how the baby was doing. Pepper had called the other day with the idea of a girl's night out for the three of them, and Wally stayed home with Jai so his wife could go.

"So how's the baby?" Pepper asked as the rumble of conversation from the restaurant patrons went on around them. There was a big football game on tonight and the bar was crowded with loads and loads of fans who were either drunk, or well on their way to being there. After they ordered, the three women started up a betting pool. Artemis bet a basket of fries that at least one guy would send them a drink. Pepper bet a glass of wine that someone would try to flirt with them. And Natasha bet a round of drinks that she and Artemis would have to kick the asses of at least one man stupid or drunk enough to try and make a move on them.

"Jai's doing fine," Artemis answered a little nervously. "Wally's great with bedtime stories and making him laugh." Natasha and Pepper exchanged a look. They both understood from Artemis' nervous, wistful tone that she was worried about being a good mother. Natasha and Artemis had bonded over their messed up childhoods almost immediately, and had been firm friends ever since Wally had rescued her from A.I.M.'s compound last December. Artemis had told her how she was worried that because she'd had a crazy childhood because of her dad, she wouldn't be a good mother.

"Artemis, relax," Natasha reassured her. "You're going to be a great mother. Our childhoods may have been as far from ideal as Pluto is from the sun, but that doesn't mean that we have to let it shape the rest of our lives. We're superheroes for crying out loud. If that's not proof that we've moved on from our shitty childhoods, then I don't know what is. Wally loves you, and Jai will too." The Black Widow's rousing speech managed to cheer the archer up for now, and the festive mood of their little gathering resumed.

A little while later, they were all eating their food as Pepper and Artemis shared embarrassing stories of their significant others when the waiter came over and delivered three drinks that none of them had ordered. Pepper asked who had sent the drinks while Artemis and Natasha scanned the crowd for signs of the trio's secret admirers. They spotted two guys sitting over at the bar looking in their direction with cheerful smiles.

"Looks like you both owe me fries," Artemis said with a chuckle as she and Natasha filled Pepper in on what they'd seen. "So what's the plan? Let them down gently or crush their hopes of a date without mercy?"

"I'll go talk to them," Natasha answered flatly once they all finished laughing. With that, the off-duty S.H.I.E.L.D. agent got up from the table and made her way towards the bar.

"Crush them mercilessly it is," the interdimensional archer commented with amusement as she watched the assassin effortlessly weave her way through the throngs of bodies crushing together. Artemis and Pepper watched as Natasha spoke with the two guys and shared a look with each other when the secret agent slammed both men's faces into the counter. They owed the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent a round of drinks. And Natasha revealed that the guys tried to flirt with her, meaning that she and Artemis also owed Pepper a glass of wine.

A few hours later, Artemis bid the other two women farewell as they dropped her off back at her and Wally's apartment. She walked back inside and put her purse on the counter before walking to Jai's bedroom to give her son a kiss on the forehead. After a few minutes of changing out of her dress, she slipped into bed alongside her sleeping husband. Wally stirred as she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"How'd it go, Babe?" He asked as he pulled her closer to him for a hug, keeping his voice at a whisper so they didn't wake Jai.

"I had a lot of fun," She whispered back as they both drifted off to sleep.

* * *

 **I know Black Widow is usually more stoic in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but I figured that since she and Artemis both have really messed up childhoods, she'd be more open around the archer because of their shared traumatic pasts.**


	5. Archery Competition

**Chapter 4: Archery Competition:**

 **Avengers Tower**

 **April 27, 2013**

 **11:00 A.M.**

"Want to settle it the usual way?" Artemis asked with a smirk as she climbed up from the couch. She, Wally, and Jai were spending the morning at Avengers Tower, and after a few hours of talking about the baby, Hawkeye started up their usual routine. Ever since her arrival in this universe, she and the bow-wielding S.H.I.E.L.D. agent had gotten into the habit of constantly trying to outdo each other as archers. This back and forth routine always escalated into an archery competition between the two of them.

"You're on," Clint Barton answered the challenge with a confident grin as he stood up from his chair. As soon as the archers rose from their seats, the other Avengers immediately started taking bets on the outcome of this round. Wally had long since learned that his wife disapproved of him placing bets in competitions she was involved in, and so sat this time out as he cradled his infant son in his arm. He wished Artemis luck and told her to knock Barton dead before heading downstairs to the kitchen to feed Jai lunch.

Meanwhile, Artemis and the Avengers headed down to the Tower's basement level where Tony had set up an archery course for Batron to use as a practice range. One by one, the team filed out of the elevator while Clint and Artemis took grabbed their custom bows and arrows out of the storage locker. When everyone was ready, Natasha took her place at one side of the waiting area for her role as the announcer of the competitions.

"Ready," Natasha called out. Artemis and Hawkeye notched their arrows. "Aim." the two archers drew back their bows. "Fire," They let go, sending green and purple tipped arrows bolting across the room towards the targets on the far side. Both arrows struck dead center. Black Widow called out for the next round, and the cycle repeated.

"Ready." Arrows were notched.

"Aim." Bows were drawn back.

"Fire." Arrows struck the targets. The routine went on for a full hour before Natasha finally declared it a draw. For the 15th time in the last sixth months. With the argument shelved for now, the group headed back up to the kitchen for lunch. Jai had already been fed, but Wally had already made lunch for both him and Artemis.

"What, no food for me?" Tony jokingly asked as Artemis sat down at the end of the table next to her husband and son.

"You've already got hundreds of people paid to cater to your every whim, Tony," Wally retorted. "And I'm not one of them. Cook your own food." Everyone (except Tony of course) burst out laughing at the speedster's barb while they all headed over into the kitchen area to prepare their own lunches. As everyone sat down around the kitchen table, Wally and Artemis couldn't help but laugh at how complicated their lives had become in the last five years.

First there were all the new additions to the Team. Then they went off to college. Then they left the team so they could focus on college. Then came the Reach and Nightwing's schemes sending Artemis undercover. And then Wally got thrown into another dimension by a Reach WMD, and then his attempt to get home ended up dragging Artemis over as well. And now they were parents, in addition to working for an international security agency and being on a nascent superhero team.

But they weren't complaining. Despite all the chaos and a few things they wished had turned out differently, they were happy with where they were in life. They were still going to go back to their own universe once Jai was old enough to safely make the journey. But looking back at their lives thus far, husband and wife both agreed that they wouldn't want to change a single thing.

* * *

 **I'm sure you're all starting to think that Cut Off One Head isn't as story driven as Secret Identities was. And you're partly right, because in Secret Identities, Wally's goal was more concrete. He needed to get home. Now he and Artemis are just making the most of their situation. But in Secrets Identities, there was a section in the middle of the story that consisted of slice of life chapters about Wally adjusting to life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe while he and the Avengers worked on getting him home. I kept that element, but this time it's at the beginning of the story instead of in the middle. After Chapter 7 we're going to stop with the fluffy One-shots and get into more story driven chapters (even if the story of Cut Off One Head consists of four or five arcs rather than a single overarching narrative like in Secret Identities).**


	6. Genius Billionaire Playboy Philanthropis

**Chapter 5: Genius Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist:**

 **New York City**

 **April 30, 2013**

 **12:30 P.M. EST**

"Table for two please," Wally told the hostess as he and Artemis walked into the restaurant arm in arm. Clint had offered to babysit Jai so the two of them could get lunch, so the Wests had gone out to a small Italian bistro they'd been meaning to try out. Since the restaurant wasn't very crowded today, the couple was quickly lead over to an empty table in the back of the restaurant. As they ordered their beverages and looked over the menu, they started talking about their life in this universe and their careers at S.H.I.E.L.D.

"I used to think that nobody could ever be paranoid than Batman," Artemis commented as they were eating their meals half an hour later. "But Director Fury proved me wrong." Wally burst out laughing at that remark.

"He is pretty frosty, alright," her husband admitted as he dipped a piece of garlic bread in marinara sauce. "But like Batman, the man really does have a heart. Somewhere, deep, deep down in his chest." Both of them let out a giggle in response to Wally's completely accurate assessment of Nick Fury's personality.

"Pretty accurate evaluation if I do say so myself," a voice responded. The young couple looked up to find a familiar man standing in front of their table with a small goatee and an expensive looking suit.

"Tony," Artemis began, annoyed at the billionaire's interruption of her and Wally's lunch date. "What are you doing here?"

"Saw you two lovebirds in the window," Stark answered, pulling up a chair as he did so. "Thought I'd drop in and say hello."

"Alright," the archer retorted. "You've set hello. Now let us get back to our lunch date." Tony leaned back with a look of false hurt on his face.

"You don't want me here?" he asked, trying hard to keep a straight face. "I thought we were friends."

"We are," Wally answered with a smirk. "But that doesn't give you the right to be a third wheel on our date." But unfortunately, the self-proclaimed "Genius Billionaire Philanthropist and Former Playboy" ordered a glass of wine and refused to leave the table. As Tony rattled off on whatever projects he was working on, making sarcastic comments along the way, Wally and Artemis were having a conversation with their eyes.

 _Want me to sneak away and pay for the check?_ She inquired with a raised eyebrow once they'd finished their meals. The restrooms were up in the front of the restaurant, near the cash register at the front counter. And from where they were seated, both were out of eyesight. Oblivious to the silent conversation going on, Stark continued to ramble on and on.

 _I'll distract Tony then,_ Wally answered with a small nod as he discreetly passed his wife her credit card under the table. Artemis interrupted Tony's perpetual babbling to excuse herself to get up and "use the restroom." Once she got up, Wally was left to face Tony Stark alone. The two discussed S.H.I.E.L.D. and Avengers business for ten more minutes before the older man commented on how long Artemis was taking to use the restroom.

"I'd better go check and make sure she's okay," Wally said before getting up from the table and heading around to the front of the restaurant. Once he was out of Tony's sight, he picked up the pace until he found Artemis waiting for him next to the door.

"You really need to set boundaries with some of your friends, Baywatch," his wife commented with a smirk as they walked out of the restaurant and out into the busy New York City streets. "Stark's a nice guy, but it's a little overbearing when he just drops in on people like that." Wally agreed, and together they discussed what to do now that their lunch had been cut short. They eventually decided on a romantic stroll through central park, and hailed a cab. It took Tony half an hour to figure out that the Wests had ditched him.

* * *

 **I know it seems a little rude for Wally and Artemis to just sneak away from Tony like that, but in all honesty, we'd all probably do the same thing in their position. As funny as Tony Stark is to watch, it'd probably be a bit annoying actually experiencing it in person.**


	7. Nice Guys

**Chapter 6: Nice Guys:**

 **Washington D.C.**

 **May 7, 2013**

 **6:00 A.M. EST**

The morning glow of the sun bounced off the reflecting pool of the National Mall. At this hour, there was almost no sound. Almost. The woman panted as she ran laps around the pool for her morning workout. Her blonde hair was tied back into a single ponytail to keep it out of her face while she jogged. She kept her eyes focused right in front of her as sweat dripped down her forehead. The steady rhythm of her breathing was interrupted by a sudden exclamation as another jogger passed her on the path.

"On your left," the man called out as he sprinted past her.

"Really, Steve?" Artemis asked sarcastically as Captain America overlapped her for the tenth time this morning. Wally was staying in with the baby so she could do her early morning workout. Since they were spending the week in D.C. that meant getting up at the crack of dawn for a run around the reflecting pool. Unfortunately for her, Steve Rogers did the exact same thing, meaning she was going to get lapped several times before her run was finished.

An hour later, Artemis was cooling off at the base of a tree near the pool when Steve jogged up, having finally finished his own morning run.

"You're a freaking machine, Steve," Artemis commented as she took a swig of her water bottle. "More machine than man, I'd say," she added with a chuckle.

"I don't think it's fair to compare me to Darth Vader," the captain retorted jokingly.

"You understood that reference?" Artemis asked with mock surprise. "And here I was looking forward to laughing at you being behind on pop culture." She and Steve laughed before the conversation turned towards life working at S.H.I.E.L.D. Being a combat instructor meant that Artemis didn't go out on field missions, so she frequently picked Wally, Steve, Clint, and Natasha's brains to find out the latest S.H.I.E.L.D. news. There hadn't really been anything exciting happening with the agency since The Avengers tangled with Aldritch Killian's Extremis conspiracy last Christmas, so there wasn't much to talk about beyond the occasional nascent meta-human (or "gifted" as they were called in this universe) going on a killing spree.

After the conversation wound down, the two superheroes headed their separate ways. Artemis and Wally were going out for lunch later so she headed back to her hotel to get cleaned up, while Captain America walked back to his apartment to take a shower. As she walked back to the hotel, Artemis reflected on the life Wally had built here while he was trying to get home. The Avengers all had a similar dynamic to the team now that she thought about it. Tony was what Wally would probably be like if he was as rich as Bruce Wayne. Her dark past, snarky personality, and archery skills were split between Natasha and Clint, respectively. Bruce had Superboy's anger issues. Meanwhile, Captain America most reminded the archer of M'gann. Both were unfailingly optimistic (although Miss Martian had become a bit of a pessimist after Tula's death, what with her mind raping bad guys and all), and eager to please.

As she rode the elevator up to her and Wally's hotel room, she couldn't help but admit that she had grown attached to this world as well. Don't get her wrong, she missed her home dimension. But she and Wally would both miss the friends they had made here in this universe. They had a bit of a dilemma on their hands. It took a lot of energy just to cross between the two dimensions, but if they were able to come up with a method of transport that made crossing over easier, maybe they could visit whenever they wanted. The only problem (besides inventing it) would be keeping it out of the hands of supervillains.

* * *

 **One more chapter before we switch back to the Young Justice Universe and check in with what Nightwing has been up to the last several months. Since the last few chapters have all focused on Artemis interacting with a different Avenger each time, next chapter will obviously involve Artemis interacting with our good friend Bruce Banner.**


	8. Color-Coded Costumes

**Coolrod: regarding the rest of the Team and the Justice League meeting the Avengers, I mentioned at the end of Secert Identities that this will be a trilogy, and I'm saving the best for last. I want to get Wally and Artemis home before I get into the two universes' superhero teams meeting each other.**

* * *

 **Chapter 7: Color Coded Costumes:**

 **Avengers Tower**

 **May 14, 2013**

 **6:00 A.M. EST**

Artemis and Wally bolted upright in bed to the sound of both their son and the Tower alarms screaming in their ears. They were spending the night at Avengers Tower and were hoping to get a decent night sleep without being woken up in the middle of the night by Avengers-related emergencies or Tony's experiments. Sadly it looks like they were wrong. All they had to do was find out which one it was. Wally plucked Jai from his crib while Artemis leaned her head out into the hallway while trying to ignore the pounding headache the incessant sirens were giving her.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?" She shouted as Clint and Natasha raced down the hallway, presumably towards the source of the disturbance. Tonight was one of the rare times where the entire team was in the Tower at the same time, so everyone was staying overnight.

"NO CLUE!" Natasha called out, raising her voice to be heard over the shrieking of the alarm system. "IF STARK SET SOMETHING ON FIRE IN THE LAB, I'LL KILL HIM MYSELF!"

"NO ARGUMENTS THERE," Hawkeye butted in as they arrived at the elevator. Bruce Banner (Artemis had long ago figured out that Batman was really Bruce Wayne, so she just called this universe's Bruce by his last name so she didn't get confused) was about to get into the elevator, covering his ears as he stepped inside. Clint and Natasha stepped back, hesitant to be at ground zero for a potential Hulk-Out. While they trusted their teammates, they weren't going to risk the wrath of his inner demon if he lost control. Artemis and Wally had faced worse than the Hulk on their own world, so she unhesitatingly stepped inside the elevator and joined the scientist on his way down.

"If Tony screwed something up in the lab again, my complexion's going to get a lot greener," Bruce commented in frustration as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Clearly Artemis wasn't the only one getting a headache from the blaring klaxons. "Or who knows," he added. "I might beat him to a pulp without changing a shade."

"My money's on Tony screwing up, unfortunately," Artemis replied with a resigned sigh. "Because if it was an emergency, J.A.R.V.I.S. would have told us all what was going on. He's just keeping quiet so he can watch us all kick Tony's ass at once." Bruce let out a darkly amused chuckle at that.

"You'd probably win that bet then," he said. "Hopefully the alarm doesn't hurt Jai's ears."

"Which is why I'm getting to the bottom of this so we can shut off the alarm as fast as possible," Artemis replied tiredly. When the elevator doors opened again, the ringing in their ears finally stopped. The archer and the scientist walked out into the Tower's main laboratory to find Tony extinguishing the flames from what was almost assuredly his latest hair-brained scheme he'd tried to invent after too many alcoholic beverages.

"Oh hey guys," Tony said nonchalantly as Bruce and Artemis walked up, as if the fact that his experiments woke everyone up in the middle of the night didn't even register to the billionaire. "What're you two doing up so late?'

"Are you kidding me?" Artemis snapped crankily. "You didn't even notice the alarms going on for the last twenty minutes that woken up every single person in the Tower?"

"Mr. Stark designed his lab to be sound-proof so he could work without being disturbed," J.A.R.V.I.S. explained smugly from the room's speakers. It was only when he heard the A.I.'s "you're busted" tone that it finally dawned on Tony just how much trouble he was in.

"I am so so so sorry," Tony pleaded desperately as he got down on his knees in front of Artemis. She was the only person besides Pepper and Natasha to ever make him feel genuine fear when she got angry. Despite Bruce's obvious "anger issues," Tony knew his fellow scientist would never flip out over a late night lab accident. Artemis on the other hand…

"You woke Jai up," Artemis replied flatly. In an instant, the billionaire's face paled just as Clint and Natasha walked into the room. He heard the distinct click of J.A.R.V.I.S. locking the doors and mentally cursing himself for making his A.I. butler self-aware. Because now there was no hope of saving his ass now. Artemis had made it perfectly clear to Tony in no uncertain terms how royally screwed he would be if he ever did anything that hurt her and Wally's son either directly or indirectly, and now he was paying the price for messing around in the lab after a few bottles of scotch.

"Have mercy," he whispered as Artemis and Natasha leaned next to each other and contemplated just what they should to make the self-proclaimed "genius billionaire playboy philanthropist" suffer for disturbing their slumber.

* * *

 **Alright, that's it for the MCU side for now. Next chapter we jump back a few months into the Young Justice universe to see what Nightwing's been up to building A.R.G.U.S. with Amanda Waller.**


	9. Blood-Stained Bills

**Chapter 8: Blood-Stained Bills:**

 **Star City**

 **February 28** **th** **, 2017**

 **11:00 A.M. PST**

"How did it go?" Nightwing asked as Amanda Waller walked into their shared office at the new A.R.G.U.S. headquarters in Star City. The United Nations Security Council had met earlier that day to discuss funding and authority for A.R.G.U.S. As far as they knew, it was an international organization to monitor and check the actions of rogue metahumans. But A.R.G.U.S. was going to be more than that. Their true purpose was to combat The Light in ways that the Justice League couldn't.

He'd been inspired by his visit to the other universe where Wally and Artemis were staying. In that universe, villainous metahumans were kept in check by a global security agency called S.H.I.E.L.D. After meeting with the secret organization's director, Colonel Nick Fury, Nightwing had decided to work on building a similar faction back in his own universe. Upon his return last Christmas, he reached out to Amanda Waller, former warden of Bell Reve penitentiary, for help assembling their own S.H.I.E.L.D.-esque agency, the Advanged Research Group Uniting Superhumans.

"Tolerably," the co-director of A.R.G.U.S. replied sarcastically as she shut the door behind her. "We have full U.N. funding, and I was able to outsmart Luthor's attempts to use legalese to slip in clauses to our charter to give him control. We answer to the U.N. as a body, not the Secretary General."

"But we're still clear to set up shop," the former protégé of Batman observed.

"We are," Waller answered with a nod. "Although Luthor did try to offer up a deal with LexCorp to provide us with equipment. I politely declined." She and Dick Grayson both smirked at that remark, knowing that Amanda's idea of "politely declined" was a veiled threat to expose Luthor's connections to the Light if he tried to use his position to manipulate her organization. But now they were officially in business. All they needed to do now was establish protocols and policies and start looking for new recruits. Waller had already gotten a few friends in the armed forces and intelligence community who she trusted to join up, but they needed more agents to jump start their fight against The Light.

"In that case," Grayson replied with a smile as he reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a bottle of champagne. "I believe a celebratory drink is in order before we get started on setting up A.R.G.U.S. policies."

"I believe you're correct," the public face of A.R.G.U.S. responded with a smirk as she accepted the glass Nightwing poured for her. They had a lot of work ahead of them, but if they played their cards right, they would be able to finally drag the supervillain council out of the shadows they loved to hide in, and into the light of day.

* * *

 **Sorry for the pun, but I couldn't resist having a comment about exposing the Light. Given how they kept using the group name in the early episodes of Young Justice Season 1, I thought it would be funny to twist it back on them.**

 **The chapter title is a reference to Clone Roy's quote in Season 1 about Luthor's money "having blood on it."**


	10. Establishing Protocol

**Chapter 9: Establishing Protocols:**

 **Star City**

 **February 28** **th** **, 2017**

 **1:00 P.M. PST**

After their brief celebratory toast to getting A.R.G.U.S. up and running, Grayson and Waller got to work. Nightwing pulled the thumb drive full of S.H.I.E.L.D. files that Nick Fury had given him and plugged it into the computer in the office. Once it had been inserted, he began copying its contents over to his hard drive. Once that was done, he pulled up chairs and turned on the projector screens so they could go over the documents without having to crowd around the computer. The first document they pulled up was a memo outlining S.H.I.E.L.D.'s policy on dealing with 0-8-4s and other supernatural objects.

"We'll need to be a bit more thorough than that for our own protocols," Waller commented. "There're so many alien and supernatural artifacts on Earth alone that we'll need to catalog unidentifiable objects based on whether their origin is mystical, technological, or extraterrestrial."

"Obviously," Nightwing added as he tore open the bag of chips he'd brought with him to the office. He smirked in response when Waller shot him a glare that would have made Batman proud for bringing food to work. "And we'll have to classify the tech, both man-made and alien, based on whether or not it's a weapon. That line is blurrier for supernatural objects so we'll have to evaluate on a case by case basis." After a few more minutes of jotting down minutes for the informal meeting, the co-directors moved on to the next file, which ended up being a new recruit's outline explaining the S.H.I.E.L.D. Index of Gifted Individuals.

"We can't catalog the entire Justice League," Grayson remarked. "But if we're going to have our own Index, it'll only be for supervillains and independent superheroes operating outside the League's jurisdiction."

"Gifted is too broad of a term though," Amanda observed. "We'll have to create two separate indexes. One for metahumans, whose powers come from their bodies, and the Gifted list will just be for independent heroes and villains with advanced technology." Nightwing voiced his agreement before moving on to a different document.

This pattern went on for the next several hours before the duo had worked out the details of A.R.G.U.S.'s official policies and protocols. The Justice League would be left alone for now, but independent heroes would have to register with A.R.G.U.S. as a contingency in case they ever "went to the dark side" as Nightwing put it. Supervillain activity would be monitored around the clock, and whenever there was a battle between heroes and villains, A.R.G.U.S. would handle the cleanup. Because of the wide variety of superhuman powers, Waller and Nightwing agreed on creating weapons capable of stopping a rampaging supervillain by reverse engineering the salvaged Chitauri and Destroyer tech that Nick Fury had given the young vigilante before his return home.

Once all their decisions on policy had been made, the co-directors went on to plan their strategy for dragging The Light's actions into the public eye. Because A.R.G.U.S. would be operating with international jurisdiction, Waller came up with the suggestion of pulling a similar trick to how The Team had sabotaged the Light-Reach alliance the previous year. The only problem was planting a recording device on one of the conspiracy's members without them noticing it until it was too late. Resolving to continue that discussion once they had more agents, they moved on to the next phase of setting up their organization: figuring out who to recruit. They had to be extremely careful in their choice of agents for A.R.G.U.S. They needed to make sure the people they hired had no connections with The Light or any of its allies.

* * *

 **We are now officially one third of the way through Cut Off One Head, folks. 20 Chapters to go. For those who read the original version of the chapter last night, sorry it was so short. I was tired and trying to get the chapter posted as fast as possible.**


	11. Guardians of the Earth

**Divine Protector of Skyrim: Sorry it was so short. I was having a long, stressful day when I finished the last chapter and I rushed to get it done. I've gone back and made it longer.**

* * *

 **Chapter 10: Guardians of the Earth:**

 **Washington D.C.**

 **March 1, 2017**

 **11:00 A.M. EST**

Jim Harper groaned as his eyes drifted open to the sound of someone knocking on his door. Who could be disturbing him at… 11:30 in the morning? _Wow,_ he thought to himself as he pulled himself off the couch in the living room of his small apartment. _I guess I had more to drink last night than I thought._ He'd gone out for drinks with Red Arrow the night before to celebrate Jim's birthday (technically the day he was cloned, but who really cared?) and he'd gone to sleep with a major hangover, evidently a more severe one than he'd first assumed.

As he climbed off the couch and made his way towards the sound of persistent knocking against the front door, he thought back to how his life had changed in the last five years. When he'd first discovered that he was yet another Cadmus-created clone of the original Roy Harper, the now-former Guardian had been rocked to his core. Realizing that he'd been created to serve as another pawn of The Light, he quit his job as head of Cadmus security in disgust. After that, it had simply been a matter of finding another job.

He was still keeping the apartment though. He was too used to the place to give it up. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts and focus on answering the door. He was surprised when he opened it to find someone he hadn't seen in almost six months.

"Nightwing," he said to the vigilante, surprised. "What brings you over here? Did you find another lead on Wally?"

"I didn't find a lead," Nightwing replied. "I found him. Temporarily trapped in another dimension, but still alive and well. But that's not why I'm here." The former protégé of Batman went on to explain his and Amanda Waller's co-founding of A.R.G.U.S., and their desire to expose The Light's crimes by beating them at their own game.

"So are you in?" he finished with a hopeful smile.

"You're just starting out and desperate for recruits, aren't you?" the retired superhero asked with a resigned smirk. Nightwing only smiled knowingly. "Alright," Jim answered with a chuckle. "I'm in. Give me fifteen minutes to get ready and we can go through whatever recruitment process you've set up. Roy and I went out to celebrate my birthday last night, so my head's still a little fuzzy." Nightwing nodded and said goodbye to the clone before out of the building and pulling out his cell phone.

He quickly dialed Waller's number so that he and his partner could discuss their newest recruit. Waller was busy making the rounds among her friends in the intelligence community, recruiting those who she knew would be willing to work for A.R.G.U.S. Once they had enough manpower to begin normal operations, they could put their plan for taking down the Light into action.

They had a long road ahead of them. In order to expose and topple The Light and their conspiracy, they needed to play their cards carefully. Their game plan would require precision, stealth, and most importantly of all, a great deal of patience. There was inevitably going to be friction with the Team and the Justice League once A.R.G.U.S.'s founding was made public. But Nightwing was confident he could convince everyone to calm down and work together towards a common goal. The two sides didn't have to get along. They just had to tolerate each other long enough to get the job done.

* * *

 **In two chapters, we'll jump back to the Marvel side of things and jump ahead a few months to show what the Wests and the Avengers are up to during the events of Thor: The Dark World.**


	12. Expanding the Arsenal

**Chapter 11: Expanding the Arsenal:**

 **Phoenix, Arizona**

 **March 2, 2017**

 **12:15 A.M.**

Arsenal felt the wind ripple across the top of his shaved head as he swung from rooftop to rooftop with the grappling gun function of his cybernetic arm. The original Roy Harper had been operating solo since the Reach left Earth nine months ago, and he'd begun to enjoy being on his own a bit. Sure he often ended up sleeping in cold, run down apartments with whatever cash he could scrape up, but there was a certain thrill in being mostly self-sufficient. Nevertheless, part of him still longed for the comradery that his clone had with The Team. But that could never happen. It was almost impossible for them to trust him after he'd almost killed them all aboard the War World last year.

Admittedly, he'd brought that upon himself, but he didn't like to think about that often. He pushed those thoughts aside as he landed on the roof of his safe house in downtown Phoenix. He crouched down as his mechanical arm switched from its grappling gun function back into a normal hand. As he stood up, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled a warning. Anticipating an ambush and having no desire to get frozen for eight year like last time, he whirled around and activated his arm cannon as he did so.

"I'm not getting podded again," Roy said warningly. He didn't know whether whoever was up here was a friend or foe, but he was going to play it safe and assume that the Light was going after him. Fortunately for him, he was quickly proven wrong.

"And you won't," a familiar voice replied. The cyborg's eyes narrowed as his visitor stepped out of the shadow.

"What do you want Nightwing?" he asked as the adopted son of Batman walked across the rooftop towards him. "You're not one for social calls and if I was getting invited back to the Team I'd get a bigger reception." Nightwing nodded as he stopped moving forward.

"Which is why I'm here about a different proposition," The former Robin answered. "Amanda Waller and I are putting together an international security agency to handle The Light's activities in ways that the Team and the Justice League can't. I figured that since the Team and the Runaways didn't work out for you, this would be the perfect outlet for your anger at the Light." Arsenal paused. Whatever he'd thought Nightwing was going to say, this wasn't it. Still, the idea of an outlet to channel his anger against Lex Luthor and the Light sounded enticing.

"Does it pay well?" he asked curiously, trying to hide his intrigued tone. "Not that I need an incentive to stick it to Luthor, but I've got to feed myself somehow."

"The job does come with a paycheck," Nightwing admitted with a nod. "Among other benefits. So are you interested?" Arsenal thought it over in his head for a few minutes. On the one-hand, this new organization Nightwing was setting up was sponsored by the government by the sound of things (he hadn't said as much, but Arsenal was good at picking up on the subtle clues), and he didn't want to be at the mercy of the whims of a bunch of fickle politicians, but on the other hand, Nightwing would at least make sure that Luthor kept his hands as far away from them as possible, and with that in mind, did he really have to say anymore?

"I'm in," the cyborg archer replied with a smirk. "Just make sure Lex Luthor keeps his hands off whatever government organization this is. Do we have a name?" Nightwing smiled.

"A.R.G.U.S."

* * *

 **And that closes out the second act of Cut Off One Head. We're going to be jumping back over to Wally and Artemis for a few chapters next, but this isn't the last we've seen of Nightwing and A.R.G.U.S.**


	13. Convergence

**Chapter 12: The Convergence:**

 **Avengers Tower**

 **November 3, 2013**

 **8:30 P.M.**

"Mrs. West," a mechanical, British-accented voice called out as she closed the door to Jai's bedroom. She'd just put her son to bed and was about to join her husband and Pepper in the common room. Unfortunately, it seemed Wally would have to wait.

"What is it, Jarvis?" she asked.

"I've received an urgent distress signal from Thor. He's in England dealing with a "mythological emergency," and has requested the team's aid in dealing with it." Artemis sighed. Mythological emergency could mean any number of things. The entire team might be needed to stop an eldritch abomination out of Norse Mythology, or he could only need one or two of them to help move some harmless mythological artifact that had fallen to earth. And unfortunately, the team wasn't all here. Clint and Natasha were off doing spy stuff for S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve was in D.C., and Tony was at a press conference in Washington. The only ones in the tower besides herself and Wally were Pepper and Bruce.

"I'll get Wally and we'll see if Pepper can keep an eye on Jai while we're gone," she said as she jogged into the elevator. A few minutes later, she jogged back out into the multi-level common room to find Wally streaming Star Trek: The Original Series on Netflix while Pepper finished a phone call with Stark Industries' board of directors. Her husband paused his show as she walked into the room and got up from the couch. In a fraction of a second he sprinted over and gave her a kiss.

"Hey babe," he whispered as they broke apart. "Jai asleep?"

"Out like a light," the archer answered. "But J.A.R.V.I.S. told me on the way up that Thor needs our help in England. We're the only Avengers who can get there in time." She knew Wally was frustrated with being called into action so suddenly. But both of them accepted long ago that it was the price of being a hero. Wally nodded with a look of resigned determination on his face before looking over to where Pepper was sitting to find that the CEO had put the phone down when she'd heard the situation.

"Bruce and I will keep an eye on Jai," she replied. "Go save the world." The Wests nodded before Wally sprinted them down to the armory level to change. Since Wally had super speed, he finished first, and moved on to packing Artemis' gear bag while she changed. Five minutes later, Wally rocketed out of New York City at supersonic speeds carrying her in his arms.

"I wonder what Thor needs help with," Artemis called out as they raced across the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. "And why he called the Avengers instead of bringing down some Asgardian warriors to deal with it?"

"Who knows," Wally called back. "But if it's serious, he probably needs all the help he can get."

"True," Artemis conceded as she adjusted the duffel bag in her lap to make sure it didn't fall off while her husband was running them across the ocean. A few hours of supersonic running later, Wally slowed his running down to normal speeds as they approached the coordinates Thor's friend (who both Wests suspected was actually a girlfriend) Jane Foster had texted them. Within minutes, they found Thor standing in a small square on the edge of the riverbank.

After exchanging greetings, Thor quickly explained what was going on. Apparently thousands of years ago, a malevolent race known as the Dark Elves sought to use a mystical energy source called the Aether to destroy the universe. They had resurfaced a few days ago and launched a devastating invasion of Asgard. Following his mother's murder at the hands of the leader Malekith, Thor enlisted the aid of his supervillain brother to move the Aether (which was using Jane as a host) away from Asgard to lure Malekith into a trap. Although the Aether had been removed from Jane's body (since it would have killed her otherwise), Loki was killed in the ensuing skirmish, and Malekith was on his way to Earth to finish his goal of destroying the Nine Realms.

Wally and Artemis promised to do everything they could to help. Artemis volunteered to pick a high vantage point from which to snipe the Dark Elf forces from above and thin the heard. Meanwhile Wally would remain on the ground using his speed to the maximum advantage. While Jane, her mentor Dr. Selvig, her intern Darcy, and Darcy's intern Ian were busy placing devices that would trigger gravitational anomalies that would teleport the Dark Elf forces to random points throughout the area, thereby scrambling the army's battle strategy, Kid Flash and the Prince of Asgard stood in the park waiting for the enemy to arrive.

They didn't have to wait very long. After a few minutes the waters along the river began to churn, as if a large object was invisibly sailing through the water. A look of grim determination settled on the group's faces as the Dark Elf warship disengaged its cloaking device before it ran aground and began carving its way through the park. When faced with a foe who sought nothing less than the destruction of the universe, Wally West only had one thing to say.

"Let's do this."

* * *

 **And with that, the Battle of Greenwich has begun. Wally and Artemis' participation in the final battle of Thor: The Dark World will extend onwards into the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode set immediately after that movie, so expect cameos from all of Team Coulson.**


	14. Battle Between Worlds

**Large portions of dialogue in this chapter are taken from Thor: The Dark World. Edited the last chapter due to inconsistences with the timestamp.**

* * *

 **Chapter 13: Battle Between Worlds:**

 **Greenwich**

 **November 4, 2013**

 **8:00 A.M. BST**

"You needn't have come so far Asgardian," Malekith called as he and his army marched out of the Dark Elf warship. "Death would have come to you soon enough." Wally took a step backwards and got ready to run as Thor prepared for battle. Upon in the tower of the nearby library, Artemis notched her first arrow while Erik and Jane worked to calibrate their devices.

"Not by your hand," Thor retorted as he stood his ground.

"Your universe was never meant to be," the Dark Elf leader fired back as he advanced along the pavement. "Nor were your companions from beyond this realm meant to be here." Wally and Artemis froze in shock. That comment was clearly directed at them. _How did this guy find out about us if he's only been on Asgard and his homeworld?_ They wondered as they glanced at each other. Oblivious to the couple's confusion (or perhaps merely anticipating the obvious questions), Malekith went on.

"My kind have existed since the beginning of this universe," he said, speaking to Wally now instead of Thor. "There have been incursions from other universe in this universe before, and I sensed the effect of your arrival in this dimension when I awoke from my five millennia of slumber. But I do not care who you are or what universe you come from. This world and all who dwell on it will be EXTINGUISHED!" In the blink of an eye Malekith lashed out, firing the Aether at both Wally and Thor. Because of super speed, Wally was able to dodge the blast and land a hyperspeed punch on the ruler of the Dark Elves. Thor wasn't so luck and was knocked back across the courtyard when he tried to deflect the energy blast with his hammer.

"We're running out of time," Erik commented nervously as Jane fiddled with the remote control for her mentor's gravimetric anomaly generator. While they bantered about what Erik had built the devices for, Artemis drew back her bow and fired an exploding arrow at the small army of Dark Elves down below. Exasperated that the devices weren't ready yet, Jane dashed off in search of Darcy and Ian while Thor took advantage of Malekith being distracted by Wally to run forward and attempt to smack the omnicidal maniac in the face with Mjolnir.

Unfortunately, Malekith saw the Asgardian coming in his peripheral vision and turned around in time to fire another blast of the Aether, knocking Thor back. At least the alien prince was able to stay on his feet this time through careful angling of his hammer.

"You know with all that power," Thor taunted as Malekith walked slowly towards him, ignoring the cries of his men as they tried to dodge Artemis' rain of arrows. "I thought you'd hit harder." Using Malekith's anger to his advantage, Thor hurled his hammer at the Dark Elf, knocking him through a nearby building and into an abandoned car on the next block over. With Malekith temporarily distracted, Wally took the opportunity to knock out a couple enemy soldiers before their commander recovered.

Thor leaped over to where the Dark Elf leader had fallen and fired a bolt of lightning at him, hoping to purge the Aether from the other warrior's body. Meanwhile another portal opened up in the air above Malekith's spacecraft just as Ian and Dracy finished hammering down the last of the anomaly generators.

"You might want to hold onto something," Jane warned Erik and Artemis as she activated the generators. Erik comically tried to wrap his arms around the stone column next to him while Artemis simply shrugged and wrapped a grappling wire around one before tying it to her waist. Once the generators were activated, a half dozen Dark Elves vanished into thin air, as if they had never been there to begin with. Between Wally, Artemis, and Jane, the Dark Elve forces were incapacitated within the next five minutes. With the troops taken care of, Wally dashed off in search of Thor to help take care of the leader.

He found the Asgardian prince locked in combat with Malekith in the square. The two were in a stalemate until Malekith managed to send Thor flying. While Thor recovered, Wally sped forward and socked the Dark Elf king in the jaw, sending him reeling backwards. As Thor flew up and added his own hammer to the mix, a strong wind began pulling them all towards a spot near the corner of one of the buildings, dragging several cars along with them. Wally quickly realized what was happening, but it was too late to do anything as the Speedster, Asgardian, and Dark Elf were sucked through the invisible portal to parts unknown.

* * *

 **AAAHHHHH! A Cliffhanger! I know, I know, I'm horrible. I just wanted to have one cliffhanger chapter in the Thor section of the story to spice things up a little bit. The plot of Thor: The Dark World will be wrapped up next chapter, but Wally and Artemis will be staying in Europe for one more chapter after that. Two guesses as to why. ;)**


	15. As The Hammer Falls

**Chapter 14: As The Hammer Falls:**

 **Svartalfheim**

 **November 4, 2013**

 **8:30 A.M. LST**

Dust and rock flew through the air as Wally, Thor, and Malekith, accompanied by several unlucky automobiles, shot out of the portal and rolled down the sloping dunes of Svartalfheim. A mist of sand coated the mountainside as everything and everyone present on the slope rolled off a cliff at the bottom and fell towards the rocks below. An instant later, they vanished through another portal and reappeared back in Greenwich, high in the air. Wally managed to run along the side of the building to get himself safely to the ground, while Thor continued to pound on Malekith until they both passed through another portal on the surface of the street that (unknown to Wally) lead back to the Dark Elf Homeworld.

Wally was torn. On the one hand, Thor was his friend, and he wanted to help. But on the other, the demigod had things well in hand with Malekith and there were innocent civilians who would need the speedster's help more. Racing back towards the side of the Dark Elf warship, Wally patched back into the comms in time to hear his wife panicking about his location.

"He could be a mile under water for all we know," Artemis retorted to an unheard comment from someone else in the group (Wally would put money on either Jane or Darcy).

"Relax babe," he chimed in breathlessly over the radio. "I'm alright. Portals are popping up randomly and we ended up on some desert planet. Thor and Malekith fell through another portal. I'll jump into the fight when they get back, but right now the civilians need our help more. What's the status on Malekith's goons?" Artemis quickly informed him that the Dark Elf troops had gotten back up and were harrying anyone who got in their way. Artemis and Jane were using bows and anomaly generators to keep the ageless warriors contained to the area surrounding their ship, limiting the amount of collateral damage they could cause.

Wally reached the square in time to knock a Dark Elf unconscious as it advanced menacingly towards Artemis. He pulled his wife in for a kiss before picking her up bridal style and carrying her to a more secure vantage point from which she could snipe at the enemy. Overhead, a pair of fighter jets from the RAF launched misses at the Dark Elves' spaceship. It was a valiant effort, but unfortunately, both the missiles and the jets themselves were thrown off course by the gravimetric anomalies of the Convergence and were sucked into one of the multicolored portals in the air above the spacecraft.

Meanwhile Jane and Erik ran down the colonnade of one of the buildings as Dark Elf forces fired on them from behind.

"What are you doing?" Erik asked as Jane fiddled with the control device for her generators.

"My signal's not connecting," the astrophysicist explained, not even bothering to look up from her tinkering as she ran. She stopped for a moment, only for Erik to drag her and jump over the raining to avoid their pursuers. A few yards away, Wally was once again weaving his way through the scrambling, leaderless Elven forces. He was about to grab another one when he accidentally got caught in another "Convergence Portal" (as he had taken to calling them) and sped out onto a frozen wasteland just in time to catch sight of the telltale red blur of Thor's cape as the prince and Malekith crashed to the surface of Jotunheim.

Wally quickly raced over to help his friend in the fight against Malekith, only for him to be forced to duck as a massive, lumbering frost beast emerged from its cave. All three warriors dodged as the monster pounced. Unfortunately, the force of its landing caused the Cliffside to collapse. The startled cries of the two heroes and one villain were cut off when they, the rubble, and the beast fell through another conveniently open rift in the fabric of reality. After a few more portal hops, they emerged back in London. Wally and Malekith landed back in the courtyard, while Thor tumbled out onto the platform of the London Underground. While Thor was busy finding his way back to the battlefield, Wally kept the Dark Elf leader busy.

"You should return to your own dimension and spare you wife the trouble, boy," Malekith taunted as he traded blows with the speedster. The boy may have had inhumanly fast speed, but Malekith's battle honed reflexes were unbeatable. With a smirk, he lashed out and caught the young man by the throat, lifting him up into the air. "Why fight for a universe that you do not belong in?"

"Because," Wally croaked out. "My friends do, and they need me." With that, he kicked Malekith between the legs at super speed. Even though the Dark Elves and other supernatural races had extraordinary endurance, the blow still stung. Malekith doubled over and released his grip on the speedster, allowing Wally to drop to the ground and catch his breath. While he recovered, Artemis fired an arrow at the dark entity, only for him to catch it at the last second and toss it towards Wally. The redhead sprinted out of the way of the arrow as Malekith strode towards where the portals hovering above his ship began to converge.

As Malekith walked towards the airborne portals, red smoke began to swirl around his body. He was preparing the Aether. Wally attempted to get closer, only for the winds being generated by the crimson cloud to force him back. Getting up, he tried to cut off the storm by running in the opposite direction of the wind, but because it was being supernaturally controlled, that failed to do anything. _We're too late,_ Wally thought to himself sadly. Realizing that if Thor didn't show up soon, he was going to die, he raced up to where Artemis was firing off arrows unsuccessfully at the cloud of scarlet dust and embraced her. If he was going to die for real, he wanted to spend his last moments with his wife.

As the Aether's gaseous form began eating away at the buildings surrounding the portal, Thor ran up from the train station and after taking the remainder of Jane's rift generators, he charged into the storm to confront Malekith. Seeing that all their chances of survival were resting on Thor now, Wally picked up Artemis and carried her down to where Jane and Erik were standing. Once they arrived, the older scientist filled them in on what Thor was doing.

"Jane's using the generators to tear away Malekith a little bit at a time. If Thor can send him elsewhere, it can at least buy us time until the Convergence comes to a close. Once that's done, Malekith will be easier to stop." It turned out to be even easier than that, as Thor used the penultimate rift generator to impale Malekith to the base of his ship. Jane flipped a switch, and he was gone. The group raced over to where Thor was lying unconscious on the ground just as the Dark Elf spaceship creaked and began to fall down towards the ground. Wally dashed forward and quickly dragged the Asgardian out of the way of the falling spacecraft while Erik used the final generator to send the ship back to Svartalfheim, where it crushed Malekith beneath its titanic weight as it fell.

It was finally over. With the Dark Elves defeated, Wally helped Thor round up the stragglers before the prince had to return to Asgard and face his father. The demigod had committed treason with his plan to stop Malekith, and needed to face the music and take responsibility for his actions. Once the remaining Dark Elves had been shipped off to Asgard, Wally and Artemis went about helping to clean up the collateral damage. Wally had to be a little discreet in order to avoid the attention of onlookers with camera phones, but once they were finished, Jane, Erik, and Darcy invited the couple to stay for dinner. Since the battle had been pretty exhausting, the Wests called Pepper to let her know they'd be spending the night in London before taking the scientists (and inter) up on their offer.

* * *

 **And with that, we are now half way through Cut Off One Head. I decided not to go into too much detail on the final portion of the Thor vs. Malekith battle because I wanted the big bad of the movie to be Thor's fight, and I didn't want to spend half the chapter figuring out how to incorporate Wally's speed into that fight. Anyway, sorry updates have been slow lately, but I've been busy with college, and now that I'm in the final two weeks of my Freshman year, I'll be able to start updating more frequently.**


	16. The Well

**Chapter 15: The Well:**

 **Greenwich**

 **November 5, 2013**

 **8:00 A.M. LST**

Wally grimaced as the ringing of his phone roused him from slumber. Because he and Artemis were still S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents, they'd been forced to spend the remainder of the previous day filling out incident reports and sitting through tediously repetitive debriefing sessions. Because of Pepper's work schedule, Barton (who had returned to Avengers Tower just as the battle was ending) had promised to take care of Jai until the Wests could make it home. Wally was grateful to his friend, but he was eager for him and Artemis to get back home to his son. After all the S.H.I.E.L.D. debriefings, he and Artemis had been too tired to make the run back to the United States, so Victoria Hand, who had arrived in England for the debriefing, had arranged a hotel room for the couple for the night.

Reaching over to the nightstand, Wally let out a soft groan as he looked at caller I.D. and realized that it was a S.H.I.E.L.D. phone number. They wouldn't call this early in the morning unless it was an emergency that required either his forensic analysis skills or his super speed. Only Agent Hand and a select few S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists knew about his powers and the fact that he and his wife were from another dimension, but Hand would occasionally give him a heads up when there was a situation where his speed could help prevent casualties or collateral damage.

"What's going on?" he demanded as quietly as he could, wanting to let his wife sleep in a little longer even if he couldn't. _Too late,_ he thought to himself as he heard Artemis stirring in the bed behind him.

"Apologies for the rude awakening Agent West," Victoria Hand replied over the phone. "But we have a situation here in London. During the convergence, Thor missed a big, lumbering frost monster during the supernatural bad guy roundup. It's harmless for the moment, mainly unintentionally causing traffic accidents and property damage as it wanders Greenwich and explores its surroundings." Wally filled in the blanks without needing to be told what they needed him for.

"You need my help to subdue it, don't you?" he finished with a resigned sigh.

"And your wife," Agent Hand answered. "Her arrows may help to put a dent in the thing. We need all the help we can get to capture this thing and send it back to Asgard before it starts going after civilians."

"Understood," Wally said as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "We'll be there shortly. Send us the coordinates." He took a deep breath to calm himself as Artemis climbed out of bed and stood up behind him.

"What are they dragging us out of our quality time for this time?" she asked with an exasperated sigh. "Leftover Dark Elves? Discarded alien technology? Asgardian prison inmants escaping to Earth in the chaos of the convergence?"

"A big lumbering frost monster that got lost and is now wandering through the streets of London," Wally answered flatly. "They want us to help contain it before it starts going over civilians."

"I'll make us coffee if you unpack my bow," she said as she kissed him on the cheek.

"Deal," he responded with a grin. And with that, the couple got to work preparing for battle. Wally went to Artemis' duffel bag and unpacked her gear so she'd be ready to deal with a giant mythological beast. Artemis herself ran into the kitchen and quickly brewed them both a fresh pot of coffee. Ten minutes later, they suited up and sprinted out of the hotel to find their quarry. It didn't take them long. The Frost Beast made so much noise it was a wonder the media wasn't all over the place trying to film it. With a deep breath to prepare themselves, they raced into the fight.

Getting the thing away from the crowded city proved to be easier than they thought. All Wally had to do was stand in front of it and taunt it a bit before speeding up ahead and repeating, waiting long enough for the monster to catch up. While leading the beast away from civilians turned out to be pretty simple, subduing it was proven to be easier said than done. Artemis' arrows didn't even faze it, and all of Wally's attempts to land a supersonic punch ended with him being knocked backwards several miles. The fight went on like this for a while until an RPG suddenly flew over and struck the beast on the shoulder, sending it flying.

The Wests looked to where the rocket came from in time to see a square-jawed, cardboard cutout looking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent dressed all in black holding a rocket launcher, a stern-faced Asian woman glaring at the monster with her arms crossed, and a young woman who looked like she was torn between squealing like glee and screaming in horror. The two of them didn't recognize the two women, but the man was someone they'd met before.

"Agent Ward," Wally acknowledged the one person they recognized as the S.H.I.E.L.D. team walked over.

"Agent West?" Ward asked incredulously. "What's with the suit?"

"Long story," Wally replied as he ducked under the beast's tail. "We'll explain after we tranquilize this thing and get it shipped back to Asgard."

"Fair enough," the older woman remarked before pulling out one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s new prototype dendrotoxin tranquilizers (Wally refused to call them "Night Night" guns, as whoever designed them wanted to call them), and charged forward into battle. Wally, Artemis, and Ward followed close behind.

"Okay," the younger woman piped up weakly. "I'll just wait here then."

An hour later, the beast was finally tired out enough that Thor (who had returned from Asgard that morning after abdicating from the throne) could fly over and knock it out himself. Once he had beamed back to Asgard with the lumbering behemoth in tow, the five S.H.I.E.L.D. agents retreated to a coffee shop a few blocks from the battleground, having cleaned up and changed out of their combat gear. Wally didn't get anything so he could run without cramping up. Wally was reluctantly forced to bring Grant Ward, Skye, and Melinda May on the secret of the A.R.M.O.R. Program, and ensured that the other three agents were sworn to secrecy.

Ward and May reacted to the revelation of other universes with stoic acceptance. Skye on the other hand, looked like she was seconds away from geeking out and pestering the Wests with questions. Wally and Artemis tried to answer a few of her inquiries without divulging too much information. After a few minutes of chatting, Ward, May, and Skye got called over to help clean up the battle, and Wally and Artemis grabbed their bag to head back to Avengers Tower. Back to their son.

* * *

 **For those wondering why I didn't do a proper battle scene against the giant Jutunheim monster, I'm really good at writing emotionally intense one-on-one boss battles, but I can't write fight scenes against giant monsters to save my life.**

 **The chapter title comes from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Thor: The Dark World Tie-In episode in Season 1.**

 **Speaking of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., fans will recognize the implications of what just happened. If you haven't finished the first Season, you won't get it, but those who have should be afraid. Be very afraid.**


	17. Reverse Engineering

**Edit: Thanks to CyberActors15 for pointing out an error. I got Cyborg mixed up with his father Silas. My mistake, I wasn't that familiar with Cyborg's mythos. I've gone back and fixed it.**

 **Alright we're heading back to the Young Justice universe for the next three (excluding this one) chapters before we switch back to Wally and Artemis for the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, so we will be seeing the payoff to that little scene with Grant Ward last chapter really soon. In the meantime, enjoy seeing what A.R.G.U.S. has been up to since we last saw them.**

* * *

 **Chapter 16: Reverse Engineering:**

 **A.R.G.U.S. Headquarters**

 **July 1, 2017**

 **1:00 P.M. PST**

"Are the safety checks clear?" Dr. Serling Roquette asked her lab assistants as they finished preparing for this afternoon's weapons test. After being recruited by A.R.G.U.S. Directors Waller and Grayson tasked her with reverse engineering the Chitauri and Destroyer-based weapons brought back from the other universe. Roquette's field of science was in nanorobotics, but because there were very few weapons designers Waller could trust not to be unknowingly on The Light's payroll, A.R.G.U.S.'s science division had been short staffed for the last few months, with Roquette being forced to pull double duty as both nanorobotics engineer and weapons designer.

"All systems are good to go," one of the technicians answered after checking the computer monitors. After months of analyizing and reverse engineering, it was time to test their new prototypes. At the assistant's pronouncement, Director Waller gave a nod of approval. Director Grayson was out recruiting some more scientists so they wouldn't be so understaffed, leaving Amanda Waller in charge of their HQ while he was gone.

"Proceed with the test," the Director of A.R.G.U.S. said sternly. Roquette grunted softly in acknowledgement as the research team got to work. The new security agency had already recruited plenty of agents for field missions and combat operations, but the number of available scientists was very low right now. They were looking into recruiting another scientist named Silas Stone, but for now, they had to make do with what they had.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Dr. Roquette called out for the technicians to prepare the practice targets.

"All targets active and ready," a young man in his mid-twenties sitting at one of the monitors answered five seconds later. On the other side of the thick glass wall, a team of A.R.G.U.S. field agents were standing in a combat stance, each of them holding one of the prototypes and ready to fire.

"Order the agents to fire on my mark," she said firmly. "In three… two… one… Fire!" On cue, each A.R.G.U.S. agent pulled the trigger, sending massive energy bolts careening down the firing range towards the targets. Even though the barrier separating the preparation area from the shooting range was designed to muffle the sound, Dr. Roquette still had to cover her ears as explosions echoed through the room. Both rooms rocked from the force of the blasts. _Note to self,_ the doctor thought mentally. _Reduce the power output on those guns so they don't cause earthquakes every time they're fired._

When the room stopped shaking and the dust finally settled, it was actually an impressive sight. The targets were made of ballistics gel designed to have the strength and consistency of Kryptonian skin, or the skin of any superhuman with unbreakable skin, for that matter. The blaster derived from the Chitauri plasma rifle had left a large bruise on the practice target. But what shocked everyone was the results of the Destroyer prototype and why the room had been shaking so much. The ballistics gel target was surprisingly unharmed, the training dummy had been blasted through five concrete walls into the armory of the facility's underground levels. _Never mind,_ Dr. Roquette thought to herself as she lifted her dropped jaw back into place.

Once the rest of the technicians came out of their astonished stupor (their world may have super humans, but weapons that could injure someone like Vandal Savage and blast him through brick walls was an amazing accomplishments), they burst into excited applause, proud of their achievement. Serling looked over to find that even the usually stoic Amanda Waller had what looked like the ghost of a smile on her face as she looked at the results.

"It would appear that this test is a success then," the doctor said as she approached her boss. "Do we put them into mass production?"

"No," Waller replied. "There's too much risk of The Light or some other supervillain getting a hold of them and using them to hurt either the Justice League or civilians. We'll manufacture a limited number for use in emergencies, but we're not going to be mass producing them for a long time." Dr. Roquette nodded and asked how many they would need. Waller told her to start with a dozen to keep the number of weapons to keep track of more manageable for the time being. Once the cheering died down, Roquette gave a brief speech congratulating everyone on a job well done while Amanda Waller returned to her office to contact Nightwing and let him know the results of the testing.

A.R.G.U.S. had come a long way in only five months, and they had begun making headway in the fight against The Light. With intel supplied by Nightwing, they had conducted raids on several facilities being used as fronts to hide the supervillain cabal's smuggling operations. Amanda smirked at the thought of how A.R.G.U.S.'s interference might start to make the unflappable Lex Luthor squirm in one of his posh office chairs as his efforts came crashing down around him. A.R.G.U.S. didn't have enough evidence to expose his crimes yet, but the fact that they could conceivably do so eventually was enough to make the billionaire nervous, and that was good enough for her.

* * *

 **Nightwing, Waller, and A.R.G.U.S have certainly been busy. Next chapter, we pop in and see how The Light reacts to the growing presence of A.R.G.U.S. and what they do to try and counter the good guys.**


	18. Moves And Counter Moves

**Just two more chapters after this and then we'll be with Wally and Artemis for the rest of the fic.**

 **We're 3/5 of the way through, everyone. Chapter title is a Hunger Games quote from President Snow in the Catching Fire movie (can't remember if it's in the book).**

* * *

 **Chapter 17: Moves and Counter Moves:**

 **New York City**

 **July 2, 2017**

 **11:00 A.M. EST**

Lex Luthor was almost never nervous. Very rarely did something happen that could shake the unflappable CEO-turned U.N. Secretary General. But unfortunately, things had been happening lately that stretched and cracked his cool, collected façade. Those things happened to all revolve around the same source. A.R.G.U.S. Amanda Waller's new security agency was turning out to be more troublesome than he and his colleagues in The Light had anticipated. Waller had not only been conducting raids on his allies' front organizations, but she had resisted all of his attempts to manipulate her little organization into furthering the goals of The Light. This was troubling to everyone involved.

Which was why he was currently pacing back and forth in his office as he waited for the conference call he'd requested with the rest of the council to go through. They needed to have a long, serious discussion about what they had to do in order to get Waller off their backs. At the rate she was going, it was only a matter of time before their existence (and by extension Luthor's criminal activities) were exposed to the public. Half a minute later, much to Lex's relief, the call went through, and the other six leaders of the Light (they had chosen Damien Darhk to take the place of The Brain) appeared on screen.

"Good evening, everyone," he greeted the leadership of The Light. "I know we're all in different time zones so I'll get right to the point. I underestimated the ease with which Director Waller would circumvent my efforts to keep A.R.G.U.S. off of our trail. Given how quickly she's been going after our shell companies and safe houses, it's only a matter of time before she starts gunning for the rest of us." The other villains all wore looks of concern on their faces as they recognized the rare instance of worry in the U.N. Secretary General's eyes.

"I understand, my friend," Ra's Al Ghul answered. "I think I have an idea to throw Waller off our scent for a while. You'll recall what I did with Mr. Todd following his death at the hands of the Joker?" Everyone winced in recollection of the incident. The Joker had been part of one of The Light's operations, and had gone off mission and beat the second Robin, Jason Todd, to near-death with a crowbar (and then finished the job with a bomb). Out of regret for having allowed the Clown Prince of Crime to participate in the operation, Ra's dunked the boy's body in the Lazarus Pit, only for Todd to be driven insane, forcing Ra's to place the boy in cryogenic storage to prevent him from going on a murderous rampage.

"I suggest we unfreeze Mr. Todd," the "Great One" continued. "And point him at A.R.G.U.S. with information indicating that the Joker is being transferred to their custody from his usual cell in Arkham Asylum. Hood can cause as much chaos as he wants, which will have the benefit of distracting Waller while we quietly move our holdings around to buy us time for a more permanent solution. And who knows? Jason's rampage may create enough collateral damage for Mr. Luthor to justify shutting the agency down."

The proposal was met with unanimous approval, and Ra's vowed to release the boy as soon as the call ended. With that order of business taken care of, the supervillain council moved on to other items on their agenda. Queen Bee provided an update on the latest Boom Tube-delivered weapons shipment from Apokolips, bringing their timetable for Darkseid's impending invasion that much closer to completion. Deathstroke reported on the technology and personnel lost in the latest A.R.G.U.S. raid. Damien Darkh gave a status report on his hunt for criminal hacker Noah Cuttler, who the council hoped to coerce into creating a device that would allow them remote control of all the world's nuclear missiles.

Lex notified everyone of G. Gordon Godrey's latest efforts to turn public opinion against the Justice League. Once all that was done, the seven leaders of the supervillain alliance wished each other well before signing off. Once the call ended, Lex Luthor took a deep breath to calm himself. _This will all be over soon,_ he mentally reassured himself. _Jason Todd's hunt for the Joker will cripple A.R.G.U.S., and with any luck I can remove that thorn from my side before Waller exposes anything that will really incriminate me._ Despite his mental reassurances, he was keenly aware of the fact that if Ra's al Ghul's plan failed, then his illegal activities, if not those of The Light as a whole, would be exposed by the director of A.R.G.U.S. not long after.

* * *

 **That's right everyone, get ready for the arrival of Red Hood. But since Nightwing and Amanda Waller are setting up A.R.G.U.S., things are going to go a lot differently than they do in the comics. There will still be an emotional reunion between Jason and the rest of the Bat Family, but I'm going to twist things up a bit.**

 **Damien Darhk being a member of The Light is a shout-out to Arrow. I know not everyone has been a fan of this season, but for me at least, it was a step up from Season 3 and was more on par with Season 1 in terms of quality. For the first 2 seasons of Arrow, I was obsessed with the show. But after Season 3, my love for it was dwindling, to the point where I was planning to sell my Complete Seasons 1 and 2 DVD sets and only watch the next season to see what happened rather than because I enjoyed it. But when Season 4 premiered, I was drawn back in hook line and sinker. I know Season 4 wasn't everyone's favorite, but it rekindled my love of Arrow.**


	19. Out of the Ice

**Chapter 18: Out of the Ice:**

 **Infinity Island**

 **June 2, 2017**

 **12:30 P.M.**

Jason Todd gasped for air as he bolted upright on the bed and took in his surroundings. His memories of what had led to him being here were fuzzy. He remembered the Joker brutally beating him into a bloody pulp with a crowbar. What happened after that came to him in vague flashes. First was fire, then water. After that brief glimpses of nearly killing agents of the League of Shadows with his bare hands. A small part of him felt guilty for all the deaths he nearly caused, but his newfound bitter, angry, Lazarus Pit-induced madness-driven cynicism reminded him that they were the bad guys. _They didn't deserve to live,_ he reminded himself as he took stock his current situation.

His killing spree was the last thing he remembered, leaving him confused as to how he got here and why. The heavy duty restraints keeping him secured to the bed offered at least a partial answer to the latter question. He was in a fairly nondescript-looking hospital room with no windows, giving no indication as to where he was. But given what he'd heard of how the Light had abducted and cloned the real Roy Harper, he could at least hazard a guess as to who was keeping him here. His suspicions were partially confirmed when a door opened along the far wall of the room and in walked Ra' al Ghul, leader of the League of Shadows, The Demon's Head, The Great One, and high-ranking member of the Light.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Todd," Ra's began. "We're glad you could join us."

"Cut the act Ra's," Jason snapped. "What do you want? To clone me like you did with Speedy?" _Assuming Ra's doesn't want to try and play any mind games I might actually be able to get some answers about what the hell is going on._

"Actually," the Demon's Head replied, "I wanted to offer you a second chance."

"For what?" the second Robin retorted.

"For life of course," Ra's answered. "How much do you remember about your encounter with the Joker?" _So that's how it's going to be, huh?_ Jason commented dryly in his head. _All right, fine. I'll play your game for now, Ra's._

"Not much," he replied, giving a half-truth. "Just being beaten with a crowbar and then a fiery explosion. I assume you used the explosion to fake my death so you could capture me without bringing the wrath of Batman down on your head?"

"On the contrary," his captor responded. "I had nothing to do with the Joker's actions, and I brought you back out of regret for allowing him to run loose." That was when Jason started to get confused.

"Brought me back?" he asked aloud. _What is he talking about?_ He wondered mentally, even as he got a sinking feeling in his stomach that he already knew what Ra's was trying to say.

"My boy," Ra's replied slowly. "I didn't have to fake your death because you'd already died in the explosion. I brought you back with the Lazarus Pit as a gesture of apology to Batman, but while a brief period of insanity after submersion in the pit was to be expected, yours was so violent and ferocious that I had to put you on ice for your own safety." Whatever sarcastic quip Jason had been about to make died in his throat as the weight of what Ra's had said registered in his head. _I died?_ He panicked mentally.

"And why should I believe you?" he retorted. "You'd have no reason to tell the truth." But deep down, he had a gut feeling that Ra's was telling the truth. That he had actually died and come back to life. Ra's didn't say anything, but the seemingly pitying smile on his face told Jason that The Demon's Head didn't by his defiance any more than he did. Ra's left him alone to "rest and collect himself," and walked out to deal with whatever business he was up to with the League of Shadows. Ordinarily, once he was gone, Jason would have immediately begun planning his escape. But right now, he was so shaken over the fact that he had honest to every-deity-in-the-world died. Despite his usual confident attitude, that wasn't something one could just brush aside.

An hour alter, he'd calmed down enough that when one of the guards came in to bring him something to eat, he was clear-headed enough to act. He was going to find a way to deal with the trauma of what he'd gone through eventually, but right now he needed to focus on getting out of the building alive. When the guard loosened the handcuffs so he could eat, he struck out, snapping the guard's neck before he knew what had happened. Grabbing the tool the Shadow had been using to loosen the restrains, he continued to loosen them until he could sit up and pull the guard's corpse (which had slumped over his legs) up far enough for him to grab the key to his handcuffs and free himself from the bed.

After removing the dead guard's keys, uniform, and weapon, Jason set off through the corridors of the building he was in, which, upon exiting the medical room, he quickly recognized as the League of Shadows' headquarters on Infinity Island. He bluffed his way past a few guards before anyone realized that he'd escape, and by that point, he'd already hacked into the nearest computer terminal he could find, downloaded as much information as he could in case he needed it later. He'd been shocked to discover that it had been five years since the last time he'd been conscious, but forced himself to prioritize escape over issues that could wait until he had shaken off pursuit.

The alarms began to sound as he finished downloading the files into a flash drive he'd found on the body of one of the guards he'd killed, and security got a lot tighter as he made his way out of the fortress. He'd emerged into the courtyard to find himself surrounded by Shadows, but thanks to some acrobatics, the Shadows' own gear, and a little misdirection, he was flying speeding across the Caribbean Sea towards Florida with only a few bruises to show for himself. Once he was sure he was no longer being followed, he pulled out the laptop he knew came from experience was standard equipment aboard a League of Shadows-owned boat, and began to review the files he'd stolen. It was time to figure out what The Light was up to and what they wanted him for. More importantly, it was time to get caught up on everything he'd missed.

Back on Infinity Island, the Shadow commander known as Sensei walked into Ra's al Ghul's meditation chamber to find the Great One sitting deep in thought, waiting for a report.

"My liege," Sensei began. "The boy escaped. He killed thirteen Shadows and made off with one of our boats and all of the unsecured files." Many of the low-ranking Shadows would have expected Ra's to quake in anger and execute the messenger (Ra's would never be so wasteful, but building up a reputation for himself had its uses), but instead, The Demon's Head only smiled.

"Exactly as we planned."

* * *

 **Oh yeah, people, Jason Todd is back in business. Things are about to get interesting in the Young Justice universe. Coming up next chapter, Red Hood's on his way to find The Joker when he has a run in with Nightwing.**


	20. Under The Red Hood

**Alright, folks. This is our final D.C.-based chapter for the remainder of the story. After this chapter, it's just Wally and Artemis in the MCU from here on out.**

* * *

 **Chapter 19: Under The Red Hood:**

 **Savannah, Georgia**

 **July 3, 2017**

 **6:00 A.M. EST**

Jason Todd's fist nearly made a new hole in the wall of the hotel room he'd rented with the emergency cash he'd found hidden on the boat he'd stolen. He'd landed on the shores of Florida after a few hours, and had spent the last few hours riding a bus up to Savannah before his fatigue finally caught up with him and he had to find somewhere relatively safe for him to sleep. But while he was still exhausted, he was still furious. After everything the Joker had done to him Batman should have sent the Clown Prince of Crime six feet under, but instead, the manianc had gone back to his usual pathetic excuse for a jail cell at Arkham, like nothing had every happened.

He didn't blame Batman for not getting there in time to save him. The Joker had planned on that. But what made Jason angry was that the Joker had killed his sidekick and yet Batman did nothing to permanently punish the madman for his numerous crimes. He was about to change out of his clothes when there was a knock on his hotel room door. Concerned that the Shadows had followed him, he grabbed the gun he'd taken off one of the guards back on Infinity Island as he edged cautiously towards the door. He was genuinely surprised when he opened the door in time for Nightwing to tackle him in a hug.

"It's good to have you back, Jason," the original Robin said as they disconnected from the hug to reveal that Dick Grayson was starting to get tears in his eyes that his surrogate brother was alive.

"How did you even find me?" Jason asked incredulously. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Nightwing had figured out he was alive and came looking for him. _What the hell is going on here? Did Nightwing get cloned too while I was out? No. I took all the League of Shadows' files when I left Infnity Island and they scrapped their cloning projects after Red Arrow._

"Secruity cameras outside the bus station caught your face," Dick answered. "There are only a handful of shapeshifting supervillains in the world and all of them were accounted for so the Lazarus Pit was the only possible explanation. I came as soon as I could." Jason breathed a sigh of relief, although he was still a little wary of the fact that Bruce hadn't come himself.

"So why isn't Batman here?" he asked. "Did he not care or did you not tell him yet because you wanted to make sure before you got his hopes up?"

"He doesn't know yet," Nightwing answered. "I've been on a leave of absence from the Team so only I got the alert. So how'd you escape from the Shadows?" Back when Jason had been the second Robin, Dick Grayson had been like a brother to him, so once the ice had been broken the two of them started getting caught up on what happened to Jason after Ra's brought him back from the dead and what he'd missed in terms of the League and the Team that wasn't in the Shadows' computer system. Nightwing filled him in on what had happened with Wally and Grayson's co-founding of A.R.G.U.S. with Amanda Waller.

It was then that Nightwing revealed the other reason he came alone without telling anyone: since because the mantle of Robin had been passed on with Jason's death, he and Waller wanted to offer the reborn former sidekick a job. Jason was impressed with how much his predecessor had accomplished in only six months, and accepted the offer since he didn't really have anywhere else to go or any plans beyond revenge against The Light, the Joker, and every villainous party responsible for his beating and subsequent death. Since nobody on the Justice League or the Team knew that Nightwing was in charge of A.R.G.U.S. the circle of people who knew that Jason was back would be kept small until Waller worked out an agreement with the Justice League about things like jurisdiction, cooperation, and post-battle clean-up duty.

Batman and the rest of the "Bat Clan" would know of course, as would Ms. Martian (who had started gotten back together with Superboy the previous Christmas after being broken up for a year, another thing that Jason had missed) to prevent her from accidentally finding out when prying into Jason's mind. The Team members who had been on the roster when Jason died would be told as well. Black Canary would be told too since she was the resident superhero therapist for all ages, and considering the track record of dead heroes staying dead, would be more than capable of helping Jason deal with his psychological trauma.

Nightwing spent the night at the hotel, and he and Jason left for A.R.G.U.S. Headquarters in Star City the next morning. On the helicopter ride over, Jason thought about how much the world had changed since his death. The Justice League being on trial for causing mayhem on Rimbor. The Krolotean and Reach invasions. The founding of A.R.G.U.S. (which Jason was surprised was going relatively smoothly with the League, although he suspected that Grayson had something to do with that, since he was the co-founder and co-director after all), and _Lex Luthor_ being appointed as U.N. Secretary General. So much had changed, but as long as someone put the Joker down for good soon, he could deal with it all.

* * *

 **I know it's not how Jason's back from the dead comic storyline usually goes, but since Young Justice doesn't really focus that much on adapting specific comic plots, I figured it be different anyway. Besides, with A.R.G.U.S. in the picture to offer him an outlet (in this story at least) for his anger and Black Canary as a therapist I think he'd probably be a little less crazy in the Young Justice universe even outside of my fanfic.**

 **And that wraps up the second third of Cut Off One Head. The remaining chapters will focus on Wally and Artemis during the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, so expect lots of action and drama. We're heading for the home stretch everyone.**


	21. Assassination Attempt

**As of the end of this chapter, we're now on the back nine. ;) Golf puns aside, it's time for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, so hold onto your seat belts boys and girls, it's going to be a bumpy ride.**

* * *

 **Chapter 20: Assassination Attempt:**

 **New York City**

 **March 30, 2014**

 **7:30 P.M.**

"He's finally asleep," Wally commented with a sigh of relief as he walked out of Jai's bedroom and into the living room of their small apartment. It had been a long day at work at S.H.I.E.L.D., between Artemis training a much larger class of recruits than normal and Wally having to do forensics for a mission involving the Centipede investigation. Now that they were done for the day, they were going to spend the night at home with some pizza, a little alcohol, and maybe a movie or two.

"We'll just have to keep the volume low so that we don't wake him up," Artemis added with a nod. While she was looking forward to tonight, she couldn't help but shake the feeling that they were being watched. Since nobody was supposed to know that they lived there, she just chalked it up to stress from the long day and pushed it aside to focus on spending time with Wally. He couldn't resist cracking a joke about their long day as he poured wine for he both of them, and Artemis smiled. Their lives had taken a turn for the crazy (or crazier) in the past year, but he still kept his enthusiasm and sense of humor.

As she set her wine glass down on the coffee table, the silent feeling that they were being watched grew into full-volume alarm bells inside her head as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. With instincts honed from years of her dad's "training" she noticed the glint of light reflecting off a small circle out of the corner of her eye through the open window. Immediately her blood ran cold as she recognized it for what it was: the scope of a sniper rifle. Two and two came together pretty quickly and she jumped up and showed her husband, sending him falling to the floor as the sounds of a gunshot and breaking glass rang out.

Artemis gasped for breath as the bullet pierced her skin. She nearly screamed in pain as her legs suddenly collapsed underneath her. Electricity sent her body into twitching spasms. Her senses were muted in shock, but she could hear the dulled sound of Jai loudly wailing, Wally screaming her name, and the thump of her own body hitting the ground as darkness encroached on her vision and consciousness left her.

"ARTEMIS!" Wally cried out as his wife's eyelids slid shut. He frantically checked her pulse and discovered it racing. Realizing that she had taken a shot meant for him, he quickly grabbed his cell phone and speed dialed the one person who could take care of Jai on short notice. "I need to drop Jai off at your place," he barked frantically when Clint Barton finally picked up the phone.

"Whoa, kid," Barton replied. "What's the rush?"

"Artemis has been shot," he snapped. "Someone tried to take a shot at me and she jumped in front of the bullet. I'm running her to Trauma Zentrum and I need someone to watch Jai." Barton didn't ask any more questions and promised to pass the message on to Laura as soon as the call ended. Wally thanked the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent before running around the house at superspeed. First grabbing supplies to slow the bleeding, and then to grab the harness so he could run with Jai strapped to his chest while carrying his wife at the same time. In less than a minute, he was ready to go and bolted out of the building as quickly as he could without banging Artemis' head into the walls.

Once he was outside he took off like a rocket heading westward. He dropped Jai off at the Barton family homestead where Laura took Jai without saying a word before he continued on towards the S.H.I.E.L.D. emergency medical facility in New Zealand. It was the best medical facility on the planet and that was exactly what Artemis needed. He ran faster than he had ever gone before, knowing that Artemis' life was on the line and every second counted. He reached S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Trauma Zentrum in just under five minutes, and the doctors quickly rushed Artemis inside for surgery.

Taking a deep breath to keep himself relatively calm, he sat in the waiting room as he pulled out his phone and fired off text messages to Nick Fury and the rest of the Avengers to let them all know what had happened. As he did, the reality of what had transpired hit him like a ton of bricks. Someone had tried to kill him. Only a select few people outside the Avengers even knew where he lived, let alone that he was from another universe. There were no documents on Nick Fury's computer relating to his past or where he and Artemis lived, so that meant only one thing. Someone in S.H.I.E.L.D who knew the truth of where he came from was a traitor.

The amount of electricity that knocked Artemis unconscious had been a high enough voltage to kill a speedster. Tonight hadn't been a bullet accidentally going through a wall because of a nearby gunfight. It had been an assassination attempt. Wally forced himself to calm down as he fought to avoid running circles around the waiting room. Dealing with the traitors in S.H.I.E.L.D. and finding out who tried to kill him could wait. Right now his only concern was making sure that Artemis would be alright. Tears slide down his cheeks as he resumed his pacing and waited for the doctors to bring him news of his wife's condition.

* * *

 **Put down your torches and pitchforks fellow Spitfire shippers, Artemis will live. But there will be consequences (inspired by the ending of the "Wally comes back" fanfic A Thousand Days Later), that will affect their lives.**

 **Anyway, this chapter is basically the day before the beginning of The Winter Soldier, so no prizes for guessing who tried to shoot Wally. Things are about to heat up. Wally and Artemis aren't going to participate in all the battles in that movie since Artemis will be recovering from surgery (and keeping him away from Project Insight is why HYDRA tried to kill him in the first place), but they will be dealing with HYDRA's exposure in a different way.**


	22. Recovery

**8 More chapters left and we're done with this story.**

* * *

 **Chapter 21: Recovery:**

 **Trauma Zentrum**

 **March 31, 2014**

 **11:00 A.M. NZT**

Wally West was exhausted. Between the rapid time zone changes and the stress of waiting while Artemis was in surgery, he hadn't slept at all in the last sixteen hours. Clint had flown with Jai and brought Wally some extra protein bars so the speedster wouldn't go hungry. But as much as his body was screaming for food, his fatigue was muted by fear for his wife's safety. He was about to complete his two hundredth lap around the waiting area when the doctor emerged.

"How bad is it?" he asked fearfully, having to keep himself in check to avoid revealing his powers. Despite Clint's reassurance that she'd be fine with the best doctors in the world working to save her, Wally had been running through worst-case scenarios in his mind for the last several hours to keep himself from collapsing into a panicking hot mess.

"The good news is she'll live," the doctor replied calmly, face impassive as she delivered the news. "We've removed the bullet and patched the damage up to the best of our ability." Wally mentally breathed a sigh of relief. At least she'd live.

"But there's more to it, isn't there?" He finished out loud with a solemn look on his face. Inwardly, though, he was relived. Artemis was going to live. Whatever had gone wrong was unimportant next to the fact that she was alive.

"The bullet caused permanent nerve damage in her lower spinal cord," the doctor answered sadly. "I'm sorry Mr. West, but your wife will never be able to walk again." Wally lowered his head silently. Of all the worst case scenarios he'd imagined in his head, Artemis being paralyzed was one of the better outcomes. He knew that this meant that he would have to help with a lot more around the house now, but it didn't matter to him. Artemis was still the same amazing woman he fell in love with. Nothing could change that. The doctor informed him that Artemis was awake now, and he followed her down the hall to his wife's hospital room with Jai in his arms.

"Hey beautiful," he said warmly as he sat down at her bedside. His heart raced as her eyes fluttered open. Jai clapped his hands and squealed for joy as he reached out towards his mother

"Hey Baywatch," she replied with a sad smile as she pulled their son into her arms. "Did they tell you about the diagnosis?"

"Yeah," he answered sorrowfully. "But it doesn't change anything, babe. For better or for worse, for sickness and in health. Till death do us part." He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the lips. Jai giggled as he crawled over and put his hands on his parents' faces. This caused the two of them to burst out laughing as their lips separated.

"We're still going to have to do some shopping once I get out of here," she commented dryly once they broke apart. "Between a wheel-chair friendly car, some support bars for the bathroom so I can shower…"

"We'll cross all those bridges when we come to them Artemis," Wally interrupted. "Right now all that matters is that you're alive." He leaned over and gave his wife a comforting hug. "Laura agreed to watch Jai until they release you, but I think he'll want to see you before then. He was really scared last night. I was too"

"I know you were Wally," Artemis responded. "But I'd rather you be scared and a life than calm and dead. I saw a sniper rifle aimed at our window last night."

"I know babe," he said. "I figured it out by the time I brought you to Trauma Zentrum. The only explanation for someone even knowing where we are is that there are spies for some evil organization within S.H.I.E.L.D. And it's got to be someone we know." As much as he didn't want to have to talk about this while his wife was recovering from surgery, Wally recognized the fact that just because Artemis took a bullet for him this time didn't mean that whoever shot her would try to kill him again when he was alone. That meant there was only one option.

"We've got to talk to Tony once you get out and see if Jai's old enough to make the trip back home," he went on. "If they tried to kill me once whoever did it's going to keep trying until they finally put me six feet under. The only way to avoid them is to go to the one place they won't be able to reach." He didn't like abandoning their friends at S.H.I.E.L.D or The Avengers, but they needed to think about what was best for Jai. If whoever tried to kill him thought that his son had inherited his powers, they would try to either kill Jai too or else raise him to be a weapon like Black Widow had been. And that was something he refused to allow.

"The only problem with that though," Artemis began. "Is that if it's someone we know leaking information, then whoever's after us could just as easily follow us home." Wally winced. She had a point there. But then just as quickly it occurred to him that the answer to that issue was right in front of them.

"But back home we've got the team," he countered. "Not to mention the Justice League, independent heroes, plus Nightwing trying to set up his A.R.G.U.S. idea, and we've got a veritable army ready to protect our child." Artemis conceded that Wally had a point before his fatigue finally reached the point of no return and his climbed into bed with her. She smiled as her speedster passed out as he snuggled up next to her on the narrow hospital bed. Jai got in on the action and crawled between his parents so he could be right in the middle of all the snuggling.

A few minutes later, a nurse came in to check on her and Artemis put a finger to her lips so that her husband wouldn't be disturbed. The nurse smiled at how cute the couple looked together and quietly asked Artemis if she needed anything to eat or drink before leaving the two alone. Artemis chuckled softly as she ran her fingers through Wally's hair. They did have a lot of work ahead of them to get home and rebuild their lives back in their own universe, but right now, all that mattered was that they were together.

* * *

 **Artemis being paralyzed is inspired by the Young Justice fic A Thousand Days Later (and its sequels). For those who haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It's one of those "Wally ran forward in time" fanfics, but it's done in a pretty interesting way where he shows up 3-4 years after "Endgame" and finds that the Team has gone full-out Justice Lords and taken over the world. Artemis has a Heel Realization when Wally comes back and defects to the resistance, and Nightwing stabs her in the back during a major battle at Arkham.**

 **Anyway, next chapter, the action heats up as HYDRA tries to take another shot at the West family.**


	23. Fall of SHIELD

**7 More Chapters left and Cut Off One Head is done. I know this is my second chapter posted in as many hours, so I'm sorry if this looks like I'm spamming all your Inboxes with updates. I was just flying home from my Fresheman year of college today, and consequently I had a lot of time to write. And when I have several hours of time to occupy myself like that, I tend to alternate between my 3DS, inflight movies, and binge writing several chapters of my current ongoing fanfiction stories.**

* * *

 **Chapter 22: Fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.:**

 **Trauma Zentrum**

 **April 3, 2014**

 **9:00 A.M. NZT**

The instant that the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up, Wally knew that there was something suspicious going on. He wrinkled his nose in confusion. He knew that there were spies for some nefarious organization within S.H.I.E.L.D., but he hadn't expected them to take another crack at assassinating him until he was away from witnesses. That was why the initial attempt had occurred in his and Artemis' secret apartment after all, but nevertheless, something wasn't right about the whole situation. Those suspicions were confirmed a second later when the lights in the hospital room flickered and died.

"Something's wrong," Wally said as the lights in the hallway went out. He knew the way Trauma Zentrum's power grid worked. The generators were supposed to kick in instantly. If someone hadn't tried to kill him two days ago, he would have brushed it off. But now, it was too much of a coincidence to ignore. This was another assassination attempt in the making. He nodded as he turned to Clint. "Take care of her. I'm gonna find out what's going on and who's trying to kill me. I'll be back soon."

He gave Artemis kiss before creeping out into the hallway, locking the door behind him. He trusted Clint to take care of his wife and child while he got to the bottom of this mess. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the I.C.E.R. pistol he'd agreed to keep for emergencies. Just because he followed the unspoken "no killing bad guys" rule of his home universe didn't mean he wouldn't use a tranquilizer if he had to. I.C.E.R. in hand, he crept through the corridors of Trauma Zentrum.

In retrospect, the power outage was the second clue that something was wrong. The second was the communications blackout. He and Artemis had been staying at the hospital for two days, yet they weren't getting any news updates from the Triskellion. The S.H.I.E.L.D. news feed in the hospital was keeping everyone updated on the latest agency-wide security alerts. But the day after his wife was shot, they'd lost all communication with the Triskellion under the claim that S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters had to reboot its communications software due to a computer virus.

The third sign that something was wrong was when he heard gunshots being fired when he opened the door to the stairwell. Racing down to the ground floor of the two-story hospital, he emerged into the second floor corridor to find the hospital staff trading bullets with heavily armored agents in the uniform of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s S.T.R.I.K.E. Commando unit. _S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent V.s S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent?_ He thought to himself as he stealthily emerged from the stairwell and crept through the shadows. He had no idea who was a good guy and who was a traitor, so he was going to wait and listen to see who was who.

 _This answers my suspicions about there being bad guys with spies in S.H.I.E.L.D., at least,_ he mused as he hid in the shadows and watched the battle unfold. The hospital staff were clearly outmatched, and he was inclined to jump in and defend them when his phone buzzed in his pocket indicating an incoming text message. Cautiously, he raced into a nearby room at super speed, knocking a few of the more heavily armored agents over on his way to slow the bloodshed. Once he was out of sight of the fighting, he pulled out his phone to reveal a text that made his blood run cold.

 _"_ _HYDRA has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D."_ read the text from Natasha. _"Hospital staff probably clean but S.T.R.I.K.E. Units aren't. Be on your guard. They want you as far away from their latest take over the world scheme as possible."_ The battle lines mentally solidified themselves inside his head as he raced back out into the hallway and fired tranquilizer capsules from his I.C.E.R. pistol at the S.T.R.I.K.E. troops before following up on the ones he missed with high speed punches. Once the HYDRA troops were dispatched, he filled in the Hospital staff on the situation (he figured that if any of them were HYDRA, they would be trying to assassinate him instead of fighting the S.T.R.I.K.E. Troopers) before calling Barton to organize the defense of the hospital.

Within minutes, Wally, Clint, and the Trauma Zentrum medical team had already devised a battle strategy. Since Wally was the goose that laid the golden egg as far as HYDRA was concerned, he would stay on the top floor and guard his family, only leaving his post in emergencies when the perimeter defenses were overwhelmed. Since Clint saw better from a distance, he would lead an assault on the security station to retake it from HYDRA (Let it not be said that working with S.H.I.E.L.D. did not teach the medical staff to be prepared for any situation. Every doctor and nurse in the facility had taken training courses in hand-to-hand combat as well as melee and ranged weapons). Meanwhile the remaining medical staff would transfer the patients who could be moved up to the top floor where Artemis' room was so that the injured S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents would all be in one place. Wally's mouth set in a grim, determined line as he stood guard outside his wife's room. This wasn't just your average skirmish with the bad guys back home. This was war.

* * *

 **I know HYDRA didn't try to cover up Captain America being a fugitive in The Winter Soldier, but I figured that if Wally heard that it would immediately make him suspicious and potentially lead to him figuring out about HYDRA's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. So I had the Trauma Zentrum cut off from outside news with a B.S. story to cover it up.**

 **So yeah, Wally, Artemis, Jai, and Clint are trapped in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Hospital with HYDRA laying siege to the building in a desperate attempt to capture or kill the speedster. I figured it would be a nice way to have the West family and Clint dealing with the fallout of Winter Soldier without actually being present for the launch of Project Insight. (Especially since that would require me to copiously recreate scenes from the film that I'd need my Blu-Ray copy of the movie for which I put in storage for the summer)**


	24. Under Siege

**Only six more chapters to go, my dear readers. Less action this time but a little more drama.**

* * *

 **Chapter 23: Under Siege:**

 **Trauma Zentrum**

 **April 4, 2014**

 **10:00 P.M. NZT**

"Clear!" Wally called out as he opened the door to allow Clint and a squad of loyal Field Agents into the second floor cafeteria that had become the makeshift headquarters of the Loyalist forces in the besieged hospital. HYDRA Agents had been coverly laying siege to Trauma Zentrum for the past two days, and those loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D. and what it stood for were beginning to wear down. Everyone in the group was prepared to fight to the last breath in defense of the wounded Agents and other personnel here at the medical center, but after two days of constant attacks, everyone was beginning to question how long they could realistically keep this going.

Before the attack began, HYDRA had disabled the building's communications system, cutting the hospital off from the rest of the world as the terrorist organization stormed the building. After the initially assault by a division of the S.T.R.I.K.E. Commandos, HYDRA agents continued to send wave after wave of soldiers into the building, hoping to overwhelm the defenders inside with superior numbers. Most of the invaders didn't get very far, however. One of the technicians recovering at Trauma Zentrum had managed to get the power back on and restore the internal surveillance systems at least, allowing Clint and the first defense team to swoop in and eliminate the infiltration team.

Most of HYDRA's numbers were greatly reduced by that point, though. The anatomical knowledge of the medical staff allowed the hospital's defenders to place terrifyingly effective booby traps that helped reduce the number of HYDRA agents attacking the building. Since only the doctors and nurses knew how to disarm the traps, nobody went anywhere without a doctor on their side to temporarily disable any traps along the way to prevent accidental friendly fire. As the siege truly got underway, the hospital patients were congregated into a single room (with the exception of the few whose condition was contagious) to allow for a greater concentration of defense teams to protect the injured.

Since Artemis was now confined to a wheelchair, she took charge of organizing the defense of the recovering patients, and patients that finished their recovery over the last two days were placed on guard duty for the patients. The cafeteria where the patients were being kept was the rag-tag resistance group's home base, and those charged with guarding it were their last line of defense. Everyone on the team who wasn't part of the hospital staff that started the battle against HYDRA had been carefully screened to weed out those who were loyal to HYDRA.

There wasn't much they could do but distrust and suspicion would get everyone killed, so they had to be careful. The easiest test was telling each agent under suspicion contradictory information about the group's defenses and see which ones tried to contact HYDRA or would turn on them during a firefight. The fact that everyone present was targeted by the invading forces managed to prove those peoples' innocence too. Wally's reflection on the last few days ended as Clint walked up to him to report on the latest sweep.

"The lobby is still sealed off," the older S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent said calmly, referring to the barricade they'd set up in the entrance hall to keep HYDRA Agents from flooding into the building through the main entrance. This system forced the invading troops into bottleneck choke points by going through the side entrances. "They're starting to tunnel in through the basement," he added grimly. "Had to fight off twenty of the bastards before we could finally set up traps and force the rest of them back."

Wally nodded in understanding. They knew this was going to happen eventually. The longer this went on, the more HYDRA would keep trying to come up with new ways of getting into the building. And since they didn't have access to anti-aircraft artillery, once the terrorists got control of the roof, it would only be a matter of time before they all died. He updated Clint on the status of getting the communications array up and running again (still nothing), before walking over to join his wife for lunch.

"Someone wants to play a bit," Artemis remarked with a smirk as Jai reached out for his father's embrace. Wally chuckled as he pulled his son in for a hug before leaning over and giving Artemis a quick kiss. "He's really resilient," she added with a smile. "Despite everything that's happened in this crazy week, he's still as cheerful and energetic as ever. I wish we could have as much optimism."

"He's a regular ray of sunshine, alright," Wally replied with a laugh. "Without him morale would be a whole lot worse." The fact that morale was starting to dwindle regardless went unsaid.

"We'll make it out of this, Baywatch," Artemis commented as she noticed the worry on his face. "HYDRA isn't going to get its hands on our son. We'll figure something out. Once we get communications back online we can call the Avengers for backup." Neither mentioned the fact that Steve and Natasha were busy dealing with HYDRA forces at the Triskelion and were unreachable. Tony was in business meetings all week, Bruce was on an off-the-grid vacation for the last few months, and Thor didn't know how to use cell phones. Until either the communications array was fixed or the other Avengers were able to come to the rescue, they were on their own.

"I know beautiful," he answered reassuringly. But deep down, he knew that there was only one other way out of the hospital if the rest of the Avengers couldn't reach them. If HYDRA forces proved to be too overwhelming, he would have to evacuate the hospital with his super speed. He didn't want to expose his powers, but if there was no other choice he'd do what he had to do. As Jai started making pretty funny faces, Wally and Artemis both started laughing as their child's antics lifted the burden of their situation off their shoulders for a moment. The war with HYDRA was still raging on around them, but with the light their son brought to their life, they were able to stay hopeful in a dire situation.

* * *

 **I know it's cheesy that none of the agents helping defend the hospital are secretly HYDRA, but I figured that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. had already handled that betrayal bit with Ward, and I figured that Wally, Artemis, Clint, and the medics would have to take a leap of faith on who to trust or else they'd get killed pretty quickly.**


	25. Requesting Back-Up

**It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN! Da-da-da-dun da-da-da-da-dun! THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! I kid, I kid. Sorry for the pun, ladies and gentlemen. In all seriousness though, I'm down to the final five chapters after this one is over, so we're in the home stretch.**

* * *

 **Chapter 24: Requesting Back-Up:**

 **Trauma Zentrum**

 **April 5, 2014**

 **8:00 P.M. NZT**

"Agent West," one of the few technicians left in the resistance group called out as he raced over from across the cafeteria. The Siege of Trauma Zentrum had been just entered its third day this morning, and casualties were beginning to mount up. HYDRA's invasion team was getting more creative in its attempts to break into the building. Each breach of the beleaguered defenses resulted in more and more dead bodies. The last strike alone claimed the lives of three nurses, two technicians, and a janitor. As of last night, the hospital's medical staff had been reduced by half. The defenders of Trauma Zentrum were hanging on by a very thin thread now.

It was too late now for Wally to shuttle everyone out with his speed. The day after the siege began, HYDRA set up some new model of high-tech turret aimed at the building. Wally didn't need to look at the blueprints to know that they had been designed to track him while he was running and pump him so full of bullets he'd bleed to death in minutes. _I should have run everyone out when I had the change,_ Wally thought bitterly as he turned to face the technician. _But HYDRA would still come after us, only then there would be a lot more bodies piling up. HYDRA doesn't care about civilian casualties. They'd have nuked Zurich and everyone in it just to take me out of the picture._

"This had better be good news," he said as he snapped his thoughts back to the present and shoved those regrets to the back of his mind. The technician was part of the team assigned to restoring the hospital's communications array so they could contact the outside world and take stock of the situation with HYDRA. Since he and Barton were the highest ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents in Trauma Zentrum (Technically Agent Blake outranked them, but he was still recovering from surgery after being brutally beaten into critical condition by ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Mike Peterson, now the cyborg warrior known as Deathlok.

"We managed to get the communications array back online," the tech reported loudly. This set off around of cheering and celebrations from everyone in the cafeteria. But the tech who delivered the good news had an anxious look on his face. "Agent West, there's something you need to see." Wally frowned. He would prefer to have Clint here for this, but the archer was patrolling the first floor defenses, so the speedster had to see to this himself. He'd never been comfortable with all the cloak and dagger of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s day to day operations, but he could ignore it since he was only brought in to deal with crime scene analysis. Something told him that given the technician's anxiety he wouldn't like what he was about to see.

"Lead the way," Wally replied as he followed the tech, a man named Max Turner, and his escorts back to the room housing the hospitals' communications gear. The news that he did see rocked him. He'd been expecting things to be bad with the fight against HYDRA but he'd never expected the entire agency to have collapsed. This wasn't just HYDRA having a few moles in S.H.I.E.L.D. HYDRA had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. at the very highest levels. Project Insight, which he'd heard of only in passing and never felt comfortable with it, so the reveal that HYDRA had created the Helicarriers for the purpose of killing anyone who stood in their way didn't come as a surprise to him.

He was impressed that Captain American and this new guy, Sam Wilson, had managed to bring down three Carriers with nothing but the tech savviness of Nick Fury and Maria Hill. And he was proud of Natasha's decision to dump all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s documents onto the internet, airing her sordid past and metaphorical dirty laundry to the world. That took guts. _Okay,_ Wally thought to himself. _There's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is that S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone and HYDRA is everywhere. We can't count on Director Fury or Commander Hill to send in the cavalry._

"The good news," he finished aloud. "Is that now we can call the Avengers and see if we can get them come in and evacuate everyone here. HYDRA's guns can't hold a candle to Stark's Iron Man suit." The tech agreed, and Wally walked a few hundred feet back to the cafeteria to tell everyone what was going on. When he arrived, he found the place a buzz of activity. Everyone was cheering and clapping. A few of them were even singing the song "Deliver Us" from the movie Prince of Egypt as they eagerly awaited news that a S.H.I.E.L.D. rescue team was on the way. He silenced everyone with a whistle, and looked over at Artemis, who had a look of understanding on her face. She knew that he was about to be the bearer of bad news.

"I just checked the communications array," he shouted to everyone. "And it's not pretty. HYDRA has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. at the highest level. Alexander Pierce himself is their leader." The handful of people sarcastically calling for Wally not to rain on the parade were immediately shocked into stunned silence at the revelation that the Secretary of S.H.I.E.L.D., the head of the World Security Council, and Director Fury's closest friend was in charge of HYDRA. "And it only gets worse from there," he continued. "Project Insight was created for the sole purpose of allowing HYDRA to take over the world in one fell swoop. Captain America stopped them, but S.H.I.E.L.D. as we know it as collapsed. The Triskellion has been destroyed. Nick Fury is dead. HYDRA has taken control of the Treehouse and our East African Headquarters."

"I know the situation seems hopeless," he went on. "We're on our own, under siege, and running out of food, weapons, and energy. But we just need to hold out until the Avengers get here. I'm going to call Stark and Romanov. The Avengers will come for us. We just need to hold HYDRA off for a few more hours and we'll all walk out of here alive. We can do this. We've survived this siege for three days now. What's a few more hours compared to that?" He expected complaints and shouts of protest and disbelief, but to Wally's surprise, his speech was met with a standing ovation. Artemis beamed at him and Jai clapped in imitation of everyone around him. Wally as about to walk over and eat breakfast with them when his phone buzzed in the bottom of his pocket.

"HYDRA collapsed yesterday," he commented dryly into the phone. "Why haven't you been answering my calls?"

"Sorry, banana split," Tony Stark replied sarcastically. Had to process Romanov's big info dump before fending off a HYDRA assault on the tower. Couldn't exactly focus on answering all my phone calls. So what's the giant multi-headed lizard doing to you that's made you so grouchy?"

"HYDRA tried to assassinate me three days ago and Artemis took the bullet for me," Wally answered. "She's paralyzed from the waist down. And now us, Jai, and Clint have been trapped inside S.H.I.E.L.D.'s medical facility in New Zealand for the last forty-eight hours. HYDRA developed some new artillery that can keep up with me so I can't run everyone out. I need you to bring in that Avengers Quinjet and evacuate everyone here."

"Roger that," Tony responded, his joking and sarcasm gone from his voice, replaced by complete, stone cold seriousness. "I can have it there in nine hours." This pronouncement, since Wally had the entire call on speaker, was greeted with a round of applause as Wally made his way over to his wife and gave her a celebratory kiss on the lips as she held Jai in her arms. They were all going to make it.

* * *

 **So Yeah, the Avengers are about to assemble to break HYDRA's siege. But will everyone make it out alive?**


	26. Evacuation

**Four more chapters, folks.**

* * *

 **Chapter 25: Evacuation:**

 **Trauma Zentrum**

 **April 5, 2015**

 **5:30 P.M. NZT**

"Are we all set?" Wally called out as he looked out across the cafeteria at the assembled S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents and medical personnel. Ever since the phone call with Tony Stark that morning, the remaining S.H.I.E.L.D. loyalists began packing everything they'd need on their way up to the roof. Food, guns, extra ammunition clips, medical supplies to keep treating injuries aboard the Quinjet. They grabbed whatever they could think of. Now they were down to the last hour waiting for the Quinjet to show up. Tony sent text-message status updates everytime the jet passed over somewhere different, whether it was travelling through a new state or crossing the International Date Line. Now they were down to the last thirty minutes of waiting for their rescue to arrive.

"I think we're good," Artemis commented as she rolled up next to him in her wheelchair. "Everyone's accounted for and HYDRA's attempts to get inside the building have all been thwarted." Wally couldn't help but smile in satisfaction at what they and the other loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agents at Trauma Zentrum had accomplished. With nothing but extraneous medical supplies and whatever weapons they could scavenge from the corpses of their fallen foes, they had managed to survive a three day siege by the largest international terrorist organization on this Earth. Sure, not everyone had made it this far, but the fact that some people managed to survive at all was a testament to their ingenuity and endurance.

Wally was just about to break open the box of orange juice cartons for one last celebratory toast when the voices of the technicians stationed at the communications array came over the radios they had been using to keep in contact since the array had been repaired that morning. It made things easier than relying on couriers, phone calls, and text messages.

"AGENT WEST!" One of the techs screamed. "HYDRA TROOPS HAVE BREACHED THE BUILDING! THEY'VE REACHED THE COMM ROOM! WE NEED REINFORCE-" The frantic shouting of the technicians was quickly silenced by the rapid sound of gunfire on the other end of the line. Wally's blood ran cold as he realized what this meant. They needed to get up to the roof now.

"Everybody get moving!" Wally shouted. "They're right on top of us. Get everyone up to the roof. Defense Team 1, take the injured who can't walk. Team 2, assist those who can. Team 3, with me and Agent Barton. We cover the retreat." The defense teams sprang into action while Wally and Clint set up the machine gun they'd scavenged from an earlier and macguyvered into a turret to mow down HYDRA troops in a narrow space. _No better time to test it than now,_ Wally thought darkly to himself as Artemis wheeled her wheelchair up behind him, a pair of medics from Defense Team 1 came forward with a gurney to load her onto for easier movement up to the rooftop helipad.

"I can't just leave you," she protested as the medics loaded her and Jai onto the gurney. Layers of bulletproof vests were stacked on either side of her and her son to protect them from stray shots, but she refused to leave her husband behind to face HYDRA's goons by himself. "I won't lose you again."

"I'll be right behind you babe," Wally promised as he stood up from his work and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. "You're not going to lose me."

"No," Artemis whispered frantically. "Don't sacrifice yourself like this. The last time you did that you didn't even say goodbye! I know you wanted my last memory of you to be us kissing under the Eifel Tower in Paris, but you could have at last given me the "If I don't make it back," speech before you left!" She was in tears now at the thought of losing the love of her life all over again. Wally's first "death" had left her an emotional wreck for days. Him dying for real would devastate her.

"Artemis," he replied as he finished the last adjustments. "I'm not going anywhere. We're all set. I'm just bringing up the rear. But if I don't make it, I want you to remember that I'll always love you and Jai. We will get through this." He kissed her on the lips before nodding to the remaining defenders to take her up to the roof. By that time the first wave of evacuees had already left and the patients who could move had almost finished filing out of the room. Only the Wests and the last defense team remained.

Wally turned to Clint and nodded. As the nurses rolled Artemis' gurney out the other side of the room, Clint and the remaining field agent pulled the door open enough for Clint to send the makeshift perimeter turret rolling out into the hallway. The sound of machine gun fire filled their ears as the remaining defense team sprinted across the cafeteria and out the other set of double doors. Wally had replaced the bullets in the machine gun with I.C.E.R. rounds, but the lethality of the turret was irrelevant as long as it slowed the invading forces down long enough for the evacuees to get away.

Wally, Clint, and the field agent raced through the hallways up the stairs towards the roof. They reached the landing near the top when the sound of gunfire filled the stairwell.

"Go!" cried the field agent, Brendan Morris as he readied the machine gun he'd grabbed from their weapons stash. "I'll hold them off as long as I can!" Wally and Clint both protested, not wanting to leave anyone behind, but Brendan insisted. "It's my choice sirs," he replied. "You both need to make it back to your families. I've got nobody left. It's been an honor serving with you, gentlemen." With that, he forced the speedster and the archer through the door to the roof and locked it behind them. Turning back to the HYDRA agents, he glared down at the terrorist group in defiance. "COME AND GET ME YOU BASTARDS!" He roared as he began firing his machine gun at the line of invaders.

Realizing that they wouldn't be able to get back inside in time to save Brendan's life, and that to try would only get them killed, Wally and Clint ran passed the bloodied bodies of dying medical staff towards where the remaining survivors were crouched down behind a makeshift barricades of cooling vents and recently-vacated gurneys against an assault of HYDRA troops scaling the side of the building. Wally and Clint managed a few shots from their I.C.E.R. and bow respectively before the enemy soldiers took notice of their presence.

Wally crouched down to where Artemis was leaned against the back of an air conditioning vent and gave her a quick kiss before firing off a few more shots from the tranquilizer pistol. _Tony, where are you?_ He mentally complained as the number of HYDRA agents on the rooftop rose exponentially. It looked as if this was the end for all of them. A tear slid down Wally's face as he sat down next to his wife and wrapped his arms around their son. He called out to everyone that it had been an honor, but before his life could flash before his eyes, he heard the sound of a lightning bolt striking the roof, and his nose picked up the strong odor of burning flesh.

Cautiously, he stood up and peaked around the edge of the vent to see that Thor had landed on the roof of Trauma Zentram and struck all the HYDRA agents currently on their level with a massive blast of lightning. Missile and laser fire from Iron Man's suit was clearly being used to take out HYDRA forces on the ground as the Avengers' private quinjet descended onto the hospital's helipad. Realizing that they only had a small window in which to evacuate, Wally scooped up his wife and son in his arms and called out for everyone to make a beeline for the Quinjet. He ran forward at super speed and deposited Artemis and Jai in the seats in the middle of the cabin before running back and grabbing more of the patients and medics and ushering them onto the aircraft.

He and Clint were the last ones on board, and neither of them relaxed until they were well clear of the besieged hospital. _It's finally over,_ Wally realized. After three days of constant warfare, they were safe. He leaned over and kissed Artemis on the lips in celebration. But despite the celebratory atmosphere of the flight back to Avengers Tower, there was still a slight undercurrent of unease. The Siege of Trauma Zentrum was over, but the war against HYDRA? That was only just beginning.

* * *

 **Clint, Wally, Artemis, and Jai are all safe. Yay! Next chapter, Tony has some good news from the couple, and Wally and Artemis make plans for the future.**


	27. Good News

**3 More chapters left everyone. Just a heads up, the last few chapters of this story are going to be a little shorter now that all the action scenes are over.**

* * *

 **Chapter 26: Good News:**

 **Avengers Tower**

 **April 7, 2014**

 **10:00 A.M. EST**

Artemis smiled as her eyelids drifted open to find Wally lying across the bed from her with Jai cuddled up on top of the two of them. The Quinjet from Trauma Zentrum landed back at Avengers Tower late last night, and everyone was so exhausted that the evacuees slept for the entire day (crossing the international date line meant that their internal body clocks were now a day ahead) getting rid of the jetlag. Considering everything that had happened with HYDRA's uprising, she was grateful that she and Wally were now in one of the few places where the terrorist group couldn't touch them.

But as much as she wished they could stay like this forever, she knew that it was only a brief respite. A period of calm between one storm and another. With HYDRA obviously developing anti-metahuman weapons to counteract Wally's speed, nowhere was safe for their family anymore. Even Avengers Tower could not protect them from the world forever. They had to go back to their own universe. She just hoped that Jai would soon be old enough to make the journey. Her musing on asking Tony about his calculations about how old her son needed to be in order to make the journey home safely wre brought to an abrupt halt when Wally's eyelids opened.

"Good morning beautiful," he said with a smile. "How'd you sleep?"

"Like we've been living on fluffy clouds our whole life," Artemis replied with a smile. "But we need to talk about what we're going to do to protect Jai." Wally groaned, disappointed that they even needed to have this conversation but knowing that it had to be done. They talked for a few minutes while Jai continued to sleep peacefully on top of their arms, oblivious to the peril he was in and what his parents had to do to keep him safe. The couple agreed that as much as they would miss their friends here, it was best for them to go back home to their own universe, and have Tony and Thor destroy all trace of the O.R.P.H.E.U.S. Project so that HYDRA couldn't follow them.

Once they'd reached that decision and acknowledged that they needed to talk to Tony about how old Jai needed to be to travel between universes safely, they spent the next half hour lying there in bed, snuggling together in one big family cuddle fest. Eventually, J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice boomed from the ceiling of their private bedroom in Avengers Tower informing that them Tony wanted to see them in his lab. They passed several other Trauma Zentrum evacuees on their way to the elevator (since they were all being offered jobs working for either Stark Industries or the Avengers team itself in order to avoid persecution by various international governments, who were indiscriminately prosecuting every S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, traitor or not) and took the time to greet each one. Spending three days locked in a building together fighting to survive developed a bond of camaraderie between them all, and the West family would miss them.

They arrived down in the lab to find Tony Stark tinkering with what looked like a miniature prototype of the Hulk Buster suit he and Bruce had been working on to keep the "jolly green giant" as the billionaire liked to call the doctor's alter ego, away from civilians during an uncontrolled transformation. As it turned out, however, it was for an entirely different purpose. The fact that Thor was there reading numbers to Tony off a screen was a big giveaway.

"So what you're saying," Wally began, still trying to process what he'd just heard. "Is that you built an O.R.P.H.E.U.S. suit specifically designed with extra shielding so that my son can go back to our universe safely without any lethal gamma radiation or unintended side effects?" At Tony's nod of confirmation, the West dogpiled the human billionaire and Asgardian prince in an enormous group hug. This was better than they could ever have hoped for. Wally was probably the most excited of all of them present though. After two years, he was finally going home.

* * *

 **From the very beginning, I've always been planning on having Wally and Artemis going home after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, so I had Tony design an O.R.P.H.E.U.S. Suit that would be safe for Jai to go home in, since it didn't seem plausible for a one year old to be physically old enough to withstand the minute amounts of gamma radiation emitted by the Tesseract.**


	28. Return to Earth-16

**Only two more chapters left, my faithful readers. The story's almost over.**

* * *

 **Chapter 27: Return to Earth-16:**

 **S.H.I.E.L.D. Research Facility, Location Classified**

 **April 8, 2014**

 **9:00 A.M. EST**

Compared to the last time that Wally and Artemis tried to go home, the amount of people who showed up to see them off was triple what it was last time. During the Siege of Trauma Zentrum, everyone they'd worked with in the hospital had found out about his powers and the fact that they were from another universe (the fact that Wally had to eat most of the food in the kitchen to keep up with his metabolism quickly gave them away), and had all been sworn to secrecy. But now, their fellow survivors had come to say goodbye and wish them luck. The Wests appreciated the gesture, and ended up trapped in a large group hug with the other evacuees.

"Alright," Tony called out as the group hug broke apart. "We're all set. Time to get this show on the road." After saying goodbye to everyone one final time, Wally and Artemis strapped Jai into his suit before stepping inside their own after a quick kiss. Wally took a deep breath to calm his nerves. He couldn't believe it. After almost two years, he was finally going home. He wished everyone luck with the war against HYDRA as Tony ran through the final checks on the Tesseract's energy levels and began counting down towards when the jump between universes was supposed to occur.

"Good luck to you both," Thor hollered to be heard above the high-pitched whine of the cube's containment field.

"Thanks," Wally and Artemis shouted back in unison as Tony finished counting down and the O.R.P.H.E.U.S. Suits were enveloped in a sudden flash of blue light. When the light faded and everyone could see again, the suits containing the West family were gone. Tony crossed his fingers while Thor folded his hands in what was probably a prayer to the Norns (the Norse equivalent of the Fates from Greek Mythology) that the Wests made it home safe. They had no way of contacting them once they made it back, so the inhabitants of this Earth had no option but to hope for the best. After all, it had worked before.

* * *

 **New Hampshire**

 **April 8, 2018**

 **10:00 A.M. PST**

"We are approaching the scene now," called out the team of A.R.G.U.S. agents into the radio as they approached the site of another energy surge exactly like that kind that had heralded the arrival of the O.R.P.H.E.U.S. Suit from another universe. Nightwing was torn. On the one hand, he desperately hoped that Wally and Artemis had finally come home with their baby in tow. On the other, he had to be prepared for the worst and accept the possibility that a supervillain in the Avengers' universe had gotten ahold of the technology to jump between universes.

As the SUV carrying himself and a squad of A.R.G.U.S. agents towards the site of the surge pulled to a stop, he climbed out of the car and marched towards the crater that had formed two years ago when the suit had first arrived in this universe. Amanda Waller was monitoring the situation from back at A.R.G.U.S. Headquarters in Star City, but when he heard the location of the surge, he insisted on coming himself. If Wally and Artemis had finally come back, he wanted to be the first one to welcome them home personally.

As he climbed up to the top of the crater, he held his breath as he looked down at three different models of the O.R.P.H.E.U.S. Suit. Two of the suits were adult sized, while the third was clearly designed with extra reinforcement to protect a small child. One of the adult-size suits was shorter than the other, but from a distance, the proportions looked close enough that Nightwing was almost certain that they had been explicitly designed for Wally and Artemis' size measurements. His suspicions were confirmed when the tallest suit popped open and his best friend/surrogate brother climbed out.

Wally quickly stepped over and pried open the child-size suit and pulled out a one-year old boy with short blonde hair. As Wally pulled his son out of the smaller suit, Nightwing grinned happily as the other suit popped open and Artemis sat up. His brow furrowed in confusion, however, when Artemis had to pull herself out of her suit with her hands. Understanding quickly dawned on him though, when Wally placed their son in her lap and scooped her up to carry her up and out of the crater. The two of them looked up to see their old friend and waved.

"Welcome home," Nightwing called out with a smile.

* * *

 **Yay! They're finally back in the Young Justice universe. Next chapter is the welcome home party, and then comes the epilogue. Expect lots of feels next chapter.**


	29. Homecoming

**Due to an addition error I realized I goofed on the year in the Young Justice Universe. It's supposed to be 2018, not 2017. I got the timeline mixed up a bit. My bad. I've gone back and fixed the relevant chapters where I made that mistake.**

 **One more chapter to go, dear readers. It's time for the welcome home bash.**

* * *

 **Chapter 28: Homecoming:**

 **Hall of Justice**

 **April 9, 2018**

 **5:00 P.M. EST**

The noise of the welcome home party the Justice League and the Team had quickly thrown together for them in the atrium of the Hall of Justice was in the background as Wally and Artemis sat at a table in the corner of the room with his parents and her mother as the trio played with their infant grandson for the first time. The combined West-Crock families laughed aloud as their children told stories of their adventures in the other universe and the friends that they'd made there. Wally felt a profound sense of relief seeing his parents again. Don't get him wrong, he would always enjoy the times they spent over there, but honestly, it was good to be home.

When they arrived back in their universe, Dick had been there to greet them and flew them straight to A.R.G.U.S. Headquarters. This served to both get them out of the area before any supervillains showed up to investigate, and so that their friend could update his A.R.G.U.S. files regarding the situation back on the other Earth in the now unlikely event that someone managed to eventually crack interdimensional teleportation. Nightwing was sorry to hear about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s collapse but was relieved to know that many of the loyal agents managed to survive HYDRA's initial purge.

After that, Dick flew them back to Gotham and Central City so they could visit their families and spend some time with them before facing the mod of well-wishers that would come when the Justice League and the Team found out. And find out they did. Not even three hours after they made it home, and Barry had already notified everyone on the Watchtower (Wally still hadn't believed it when Dick told him two Christmases ago that the Team was operating out of the Watchtower, and was really proud of everyone). Within minutes of the first Leaguer or teammate showing up on their doorstep, everyone was already working on organizing a big welcome home bash for them.

"So then I slipped Artemis her credit card so she could go pay the check under the pretense of using the restroom," Wally said. His parents were loving the story of how Tony had barged in to try and third wheel on their son's lunch date with his wife. "And then five minutes later I got, allegedly to come check up on her, but in reality I just slipped outside and we just walked away." Everyone in the room burst out laughing.

"Wally that was extremely rude of you," his mom managed to gasp out in between chuckles. "How many times have your father and I told you it's rude to just walk out when you have guests along on group outings?"

"Tony's not a guest," he jokingly retorted. "He's an annoying nuisance with an ego the size of Jupiter. The whole point of our lunch date was so we could have a day to ourselves without having to deal with him." That set off another round of laughter from their family, and everyone who'd walk by and overhear who didn't know the full details about the couple's stay in the world of the Avengers would ask for clarification. This meant that Wally and Artemis were forced to repeat their comparisons of the Avengers to heroes in their world at least a few dozen times. As their parents got caught up in side conversations with passing Leaguers, Wally and Artemis made their way to a quiet corner of the Hall where they could talk in private with the other four of The Team's original members.

"Jai is so cute," M'gann remarked as she playfully shapeshifted into cartoonish looking forms, much to the youngest West's delight. Conner couldn't help but chuckle. He and M'gann had worked out their trust issues a year ago and had managed to end up back together. Accidentally frying Kaldur's brain in anger had been the reality check that Ms. Martian had needed to make her realize how far she'd really gone in abusing her powers and reigning in her more ruthless uses of it. They'd been on better terms with each other since a month or so after the Reach Invasion, and now Conner was considering if he was ready to propose.

He'd shared his nervousness about asking the question with Wally, figuring that as one of the few people on the team to actually be married, he'd understand what the half-Kryptonian was going through and know what kind of advice to give. Nightwing had started up a steady relationship with Batgirl, and Kaldur had finally managed to regain the trust of the team after his fake defection during the battle against the Reach. Dick had let the rest of the Team's founding members in on his formation of A.R.G.U.S.

Conner was frustrated with Dick keeping secrets again, but Kaldur and M'gann understood the value in keeping the personal connection between members of the League or the Team and agents of A.R.G.U.S. a secret. If the general public knew that many high ranking agents like Jason Todd, Jim Harper, and Roy Harper (the original one) were friends with the Justice League and their covert ops division, the public perception of A.R.G.U.S. would be as bad as the League's if not worse.

"I'm glad you have both come back safe," Kaldur said warmly. "I only wish the circumstances hadn't been what they are."

"So do we," Artemis replied. "It's not like I wanted to be paralyzed from the waist down." The small group let out an awkward chuckle at the attempted humor, but otherwise said nothing. "I do wish we hadn't had to come home running away with our tails between our legs though," she went on. "But because of the bad guys, it just couldn't be helped."

"You survived a three day siege by an army of terrorists with both conventional and anti-metahuman weapons," Conner commented. "I'd say considering the fact you both made it out at all is an accomplishment." Everyone agreed, and the group stayed at the party for a few hours more, until Jai began to drift off to sleep. That was the signal to the boy's parents that it was time to turn in for the night. They said their goodbyes to everyone and walked through the Zeta Tube that took them back to Star City (at least unlike the Tesseract, those would safely allow a baby to travel through without extra protection).

From there, they walked to the hotel Nightwing had booked for them a few blocks from A.R.G.U.S. Headquarters. They'd decided to stay away from Central City and Palo Alto for a while, at least until they could explain to their friends from high school and college how he'd managed to come back from the dead. It was going to take a bit of paperwork forging and explaining to do, but for the moment, neither of them cared. After twenty two months in the Avengers' universe, they were finally home.

* * *

 **Alright folks, just the epilogue up next. After that, I'll be working on Kingdom Hearts 4: Connected Worlds for the remainder of the summer.**


	30. Business As Usual

**It's the final chapter everyone. This is where we say goodbye.**

* * *

 **Epilogue: Business As Usual:**

 **Apokolips**

 **April 10, 2018**

 **Time Unknown, Time Zone Unknown**

Though Vandal Savage kept a straight face, inwardly, he was actually surprised. This was not the news he'd been expecting to receive. He'd made a quick Boom Tube-aided trip to Apokolips to meet with Darkseid regarding the minutia of the invasion of Earth they were planning for the following New Year's Eve. He'd left The Light's forces on Earth under the joint command of Lex Luthor and Ra's Al Ghul, trusting them to handle anything that came up until he came back. When he'd first gotten the call, he'd initially reacted with annoyance, but now he was intrigued.

"So what you're saying," he began. "Is that the original Kid Flash was transported to another dimension during his alleged death. From that dimension, he was able to develop the technology to teleport between different universes. As a result of his testing of the prototype, Nightwing and Artemis ended up there as well. Nightwing returned first and founded A.R.G.U.S. Due to the potential risks of travelling while pregnant, Artemis and Wally stayed behind, until the actions of a "villainous" organization forced them to return home." Luthor nodded his head in agreement, and behind him, Darkseid scowled in frustration.

"Ordinarily," Luthor replied. "I would suggest we use this to discredit A.R.G.U.S. and possibly suggest that Nightwing isn't even human, playing up the population's xenophobia that we've been building on since the Krolotean Invasion. The only problem is that we'd need to hard evidence to support what we want the people to believe. A few fabricated documents aren't proof enough, because for all their gullibility, the masses collectively have enough sense to not believe something just because it's on paper. We'd need actual video footage of the teleportation, and unfortunately, A.R.G.U.S. has gone out of its way to keep a lid on that."

"The question now, though," Ra's added. "Is whether or not we should postpone our plans for Darkseid's invasion, or accelerate them?" Vandal frowned as he looked to the faces of the other six leaders of the Light on the computer screen. Though the leadership of their cabal was nominally a joint effort, because of his immortality and experience, the other leaders looked to him for suggestions in difficult situations like this. And for the first time in his long, immortal life, he did not have an answer for them. _This will actually take a lot of thought to puzzle out,_ he mused to himself as he informed them that he needed time to come up with a solution and ended the call.

"In all the years I've known you, I don't think I've ever seen you this upset about anything," Darkseid commented as Vandal turned away from the monitor and began the trek bac to his guest quarters in the dark god's temple of death. Vandal Savage had been friends with the lord of Apokolips since long before The Light was founded, having accidentally stumbled upon an Apokoliptan scouting party and inadvertently traveling to Darkseid's throne room via Boom Tube. The immortal caveman quickly impressed the dark emperor with his fighting skills and cunning mind, and they had been firm friends ever since.

"That's because for the first time in my life I'm at a complete loss for how to handle this situation," Savage admitted. "Any move we make now will cripple us and set our plans back by decades."

"There is no need to worry so much, old friend," Darkseid replied. "Godfrey practically controls the general public, and without an actual confession from any of your associates back on Earth, A.R.G.U.S. can only delay our plans, not cripple them. The return of these three is of no consequence. They will die when we conquer your world regardless of whether they interfere or not." Savage smiled an insidious grin, reassured by his old friend's words. Reinvigorated, his destination changed from his quarters to Darkseid's war room. It was time to get back to work.

* * *

 **A lot of Young Justice Season 3 fanfiction stories have Darkseid doublecross Savage, but the handshake between the two of them at the end of Season 2 gave me the impression that they had been friends for a long time and held a great deal of respect for each other, so I ran with that in my own story.**

 **Well, that's it folks. Cut Off One Head is over. I'll be spending the rest of the summer working on my Acolytes of Chaos story Kingdom Hearts IV: Connected Worlds, so depending how long that takes, in all likely hood, I won't get started on I Had Strings (But Now I'm Free), the third and final installment of the Secret Identities Trilogy until late August-Early September at the latest. Until next time, dear readers. I hope you've enjoyed the second installment of this universe, and I look forward to hearing from you all again in the next act.**


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